


It's Called Black Magic

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: A little bit of angst, Abuse Of Superhero Privileges, Backstreet Boys - Freeform, Boy Bands, Cat pictures, Chocolate, Dancing in the Rain, Declarations Of Love, Denial, F/M, Flowers, Fluff and Humor, Happy Ending, Hot Air Balloons, Identity Reveal, Kissing, Kittens, Less Platonic Cuddling, Love Potion/Spell, Magic, Making Out, Miraculous Big Bang 2k17, Pining, Platonic Cuddling, Puns & Word Play, Romance, Rooftop Gardens, Serenading in Public, Skywriting, Slow Burn, Superpowered Piggy Back Rides, Swearing, The Chatstreet Boys, Thunder and Lightning, Thunderstorms, Unhelpful Plagg, Wooing, conflicted feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-07 20:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12849399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: The jump from stealing phones and breaking and entering to actual, literal black magic is easier to take than Marinette would have expected.  The love spell Alya found should have solved all of her problems, but Adrien is away at a week long photo shoot, and Marinette's true love wears a lot more leather than she was expecting.





	1. I Got the Recipe

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! You're finally getting to see this!
> 
> It's Called Black Magic is inspired by Little Mix's Black Magic, and all the chapter titles come from that song.
> 
> It's been a long four months, and a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and even my literal appendix went into this fic, which, I might add, ended up at almost double my original 25k goal. So yay for that :)
> 
> Many thanks to my amazing team. [MrsAshKetchum made this lovely art,](http://mrsashketchum.tumblr.com/post/168313779918) [The-Original-Bookworm made this lovely playlist,](http://the-original-book-worm.tumblr.com/post/168310905015/mbb-response) and [GreenParisPavement](https://greenparispavement.tumblr.com/) was my lovely beta. You guys made amazing Death Eaters, and I will definitely recruit you the next time I try to take over the Wizarding World. Love you lots <3
> 
> And now, without further ado, please enjoy the show.

Marinette collapsed against the back of the library chair, sighing with relief. 

"I can't believe it's finally over," she groaned, stretching her arms above her head.  "This project took, like, six years off my life." 

Alya snorted in agreement, scanning their poster board for any mistakes.  "At least twelve," she amended.  "Every geography class takes off six years.  This stupid project took off at least double that."  

Marinette's back cracked audibly, and she relaxed into a more comfortable position.  "We're going to die by twenty two at this point." 

"Thank you, geography, for saving me from having to experience grey hair, wrinkles, and menopause."  Alya bowed gratefully to their holy poster board before stuffing her things back into her backpack.  "Now for the non-boring part of our hangout." 

"What's the non-boring part?" Marinette wondered, carefully rolling up the poster.  "Are we getting ice cream?" 

Alya's grin was terrible, and Marinette wasn't sure whether she should be afraid or excited.  "You know how we're moving my nan into the nursing home, right?"  Alya flattened an aged piece of paper on the table in front of them.  "Well, I found this when we were packing up her stuff.  Nan says it’s a love spell." 

Marinette raised an eyebrow, pulling the paper towards her.  The writing was half worn off, and parts weren't even in French, but from what she could understand, it did seem to be a spell.  She glanced back up at Alya.  "Isn't your nan, you know—" 

"Bat-shit crazy?" Alya finished.  "Oh, yeah.  Totally.  But she claims to be a witch, and she translated the spell for me."  She waved her phone, which supposedly contained the translation.  "According to her, if the person who drinks the potion does so with love in their heart, the deepest feelings of love and admiration will be awakened in their one true love."  Marinette snorted, and Alya pressed her lips together to keep from giggling.  "It's true.  At least, according to Nan." 

"So basically this potion makes whoever drinks it's true love fall in love with them?" Marinette recapped, and Alya nodded.  "You going to try it on Nino, then?" 

"No."  Alya looked appalled.  "I mean, the chances of this thing working are basically non-existent, but how awkward would that be?  Some random person showing up , claiming to be my true love?  No, thank you."  She shook her head, ponytail flopping forcefully.  "I don't care if Nino's my one true love or not.  He's my right now, and I'm not about to potentially ruin that with some spell that might not even work properly." 

Marinette nodded sagely, giving up on her self-assigned task of figuring out whether the smudge in the corner of the page was the word "retrouver" or a doodle of a dinosaur, and returning her attention to Alya.  "That's a very grown up decision, Al." 

"I'm a very grown up person, in case you haven't noticed."  Alya flipped her hair dramatically, and Marinette grinned.  "So, back to the spell.  Apparently the effects last a week, and they set in during the first time the true love is asleep and wear off during sleep a week later.  According to Nan, sleep is very important for a lot of magic." 

"As it should be," Marinette agreed.  She glanced down at the paper again, a plan forming in her head.  "You said it only lasts a week?  Do you think, maybe, it would work on Adrien if I drank the potion?  You know, if the potion even works?" 

Alya's grin grew even more wicked.  "I think there's a high possibility."  Marinette stifled a squeal.  She wasn't fourteen anymore, and loud squealing was generally frowned upon in the library.  "Wanna give it a shot?" 

Marinette's gut was telling her yes, but her head was pointing out that maybe, just maybe, making Adrien fall in love with her via a potion might not be the most morally sound decision. 

But then her heart jumped on board with her gut with the reminder of all she'd done for the Adrien Cause—please refer to her long list of lawfully ambiguous decisions including: 17 counts of breaking and entering (for good reasons), 46 counts of stealing his phone (for equally good reasons), and 1 account of going full out superhero in a jealous rage (which wasn't technically breaking any laws, as far as she knew)—and suddenly her gut and her heart were beating up her head in a back alley for pocket change. 

"I'm in." 

Alya whooped, slightly too loudly for their current location, and pulled another bag out from nowhere.  "I already gathered all the ingredients," she said, and Marinette realized that her agreeing to it was never really under question.  She started pulling random objects from the bag.  "They were surprisingly easy to find.  I would have made the potion myself, but apparently it has a better chance of working if the person actually taking it helps make it." 

Marinette sifted through the ingredients.  Rosemary.  Green tea.  Dandelion seeds.  Candy corn.  Frog legs.  All the usual makings of a spell, Marinette mused, never having actually made a spell before. 

"What's this?" she asked, plucking something up. 

Alya glanced up from her unpacking.  "Dried elephant shit," she said, and Marinette dropped it, making a face. 

"Where the hell did you find dried elephant shit?" 

"In one of Nan's boxes."  Alya shrugged, dusting off her hands as she placed the last of the ingredients on the table.  "She actually had most of this stuff already.  And these."  Alya pulled out a small cauldron and a hot plate.  "You're supposed to boil it all for half an hour and then let it sit for at least three and drink it at sunset and, voila!  Adrien's secret love for you stops being secret." 

Marinette shared a grin with her friend, and they set to work, quickly dumping Alya's precise measurements into the cauldron and stirring in some vitamin water—"According to my Nan, water your enemies have bathed in works best, but vitamin water adds nutrients and gives the connection between you and your true love vitamins and strength.  Or something.  But I swear it's just as good."—and brought the potion-in-process to a boil. 

"That's it?" Marinette stared into the pinkish-greenish mixture, trying to put off the thought that she'd be drinking rehydrated elephant shit at sunset that night.  "Now we just wait?" 

Alya nodded.  "Just one final ingredient," she said, and pulled a hair from Marinette's head before her friend could even ask.  She dropped it into the cauldron and clapped her hands.  "And now we wait." 

********* 

Marinette watched the sun sink lower in the sky from her balcony, slowly swishing the potion in her Lady Wifi coffee mug—a hand painted gift from Alya from last Christmas because "everyone should have a coffee mug of their best friend's akuma.  And don't worry, girl.  I'll make myself one of yours when you get akumatized."  It would only take one sip, according to Alya's nan, but Alya figured more couldn't hurt. 

"I still can't believe you actually did magic in a library and nobody noticed," Tikki said, settling onto her chosen's shoulder.  "That's not something everyone can do." 

Marinette glanced down at the potion, the colour shifting from pink to green and back again in the fading light.  "It probably wasn't even actual magic," she pointed out.  She didn't bother defending their use of the hot plate, since Kim had managed to cook an entire turkey dinner in the back of the library the week before without being caught—a process which included sneaking in an actual oven and feeding said dinner to the entire class.  A hot plate was child's play. 

Tikki floated down from her perch, peering into the mug.  "It's definitely magic," she said, nodding decisively.  "I can sense it." 

Marinette stared at her kwami.  "You're saying this is going to work?"  Tikki nodded again, and Marinette returned her gaze to the horizon.  This was real.  Alya's nan was actually a witch, and this was a real potion, and drinking rehydrated elephant shit was going to prove that Adrien was her true love by tomorrow morning. 

_ Holy shit. _

"Are you sure you want to do this, Marinette?" Tikki asked, floating back into her chosen's view.  "You can't go back from this." 

It was at that second that the sun finally sunk, the sky exploding in an array of pink and orange. 

Marinette took a brief moment to weigh the pros and cons of drinking this potion—Pros: Adrien would be in love with her; Chloe would flip and probably break out in acne; she could go on dates with Adrien and get married and have three kids, a cat, and a hamster.  Cons: She'd have to drink elephant shit; literally that was it—and nodded to herself. 

"I'm sure." 

And she took a sip. 


	2. One Taste and You'll Be Mine

Marinette actually awoke on time, for once, that Monday morning.  Not that she'd gotten much sleep, to be fair. 

But really, who would be able to sleep when they were hours away from having Adrien freaking Agreste be madly in love with them? 

It took her a bit longer than her normal throw-on-the-first-clean-outfit-she-finds to get dressed—because your true love only falls in love with you once.  You couldn't be caught wearing something subpar—but eventually decided on a floral sundress she'd finished a few weeks back and hadn't had a chance to wear. 

She stood in front of her mirror, eyes scanning her appearance for any hair, any thread, that might be out of place. 

But her hair was perfect, her eyeliner was killer, and her dress was flawless. 

"This is it, Tikki," she whispered, meeting her kwami's eye in the mirror.  "Today's the day that Adrien's going to fall in love with me." 

Tikki offered Marinette a cautious smile.  "You do know there's a chance your true love might not be Adrien, right?" 

Marinette brushed off Tikki's concerns, slinging her purse over her shoulder.  "Then we'll deal with that if it happens," she said.   _ Which it won't _ , she silently added.  "Let's get going.  I want to be early today." 

And she was, because , for once, nothing went wrong on her way to school.  She made the crosswalks as the lights turned green.  Hawkmoth didn't decide to disrupt her plans with an attack.  She didn't step in any mud puddles.  Everything was going fantastic. 

Alya was already on the front steps when she arrived at the school, and sprinted down them to meet her. 

"Are you ready?" 

Marinette grinned back, rocking on the balls of her feet.  “Beyond ready,” she confirmed.  “Now he’s just got to show up.”

Alya frowned slightly.  “You haven’t heard from him, then?” she questioned, and Marinette shook her head.  “You mean he hasn’t texted you in a love craze?”

Marinette felt the butterflies circus that had been performing in her gut all morning start to die down, before she remembered a very important detail.

“He doesn’t have my number,” she pointed out.  “And his dad never let him get Facebook, so, no matter how much he desperately wants to text me, he can’t.”

Alya high fived her for her killer deduction skills, and the butterflies began their acrobatics once more.

“Who desperately wants to text you?”

Marinette jumped, spinning around with a wide grin, only for it to fall.

“It’s just you,” she sighed, and Nino raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry?”

Alya snorted, reaching up to press a kiss against her boyfriend’s cheek.  “She’s just disappointed that Adrien’s not with you, babe,” she assured him.  “Don’t feel too bad about yourself.”

Nino laughed.  “Sorry to disappoint,” he said, glancing over at Marinette, “but Adrien’s not going to be here today.  Or at all this week.”

“What?”

Nino blinked at the two girls.  It wasn’t often that he was yelled at simultaneously by his girlfriend and her best friend for no apparent reason.

“He’s got some sort of massive photoshoot going on,” he explained.  “Apparently it’ll take at least until Friday, and they’re shooting all day all week.”

Marinette pursed her lips.  Of course.  Of course she had to do this on the one week it’d be impossible to see Adrien and find out if it worked.  That was just her luck.

Alya looked pensive for a moment before turning on her boyfriend.  “Did  _ you _ get any desperate texts from Adrien this morning?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.  “Specifically in regards to Marinette’s contact information?”

Marinette perked up.  This was good, right?  If Adrien was asking Nino for ways to contact her, that had to mean he was in love with her, right?

Nino shook his head.  “Kim put it in his deep fryer the other day, remember?”  

Marinette slumped again.  She did remember.  He’d invited the class over to deep fry things, and one thing lead to another - which lead to Nino’s phone being mistaken for a box of Smarties and being deep fried.  Though, in a way, it was really Nino’s own fault for buying a phone case that looked like a candy box.

“So I drank rehydrated elephant shit for nothing,” Marinette concluded with a sigh.  Nino turned to her with a questioning eye.

“Why did you drink rehydrated elephant shit?”

Marinette shrugged, not particularly wanting Nino to know that she’d tried to love potion his best friend.  “Alya thought it was a good idea.”

Alya rolled her eyes.  “So did you, girl,” she pointed out before turning to her boyfriend.  “My nan gave me a love potion recipe that makes your true love fall madly in love with you for a week.”

Nino nodded in understanding.  “And Mari decided to try to use it to get Adrien to stop being a moron,” he concluded, and Marinette groaned, hiding her face in her hands.  

It sounded so stupid when they laid it out like that.  Who would try a love potion on their crush, thinking it’d actually work?  Crazy people, that’s who.  She looked like a crazy person, because neither Alya nor Nino knew that the potion was real, and that her true love, that Adrien, was out there, somewhere, madly in love with her and unable to do anything about it.

It would be so much easier if he was actually at school.  She would know by now, and wouldn’t have to spend the week wondering.

“Makes sense.”  Nino’s words snapped her out of her reverie.  “He’s way too dense for anything less obvious to work.”

“Exactly!” Alya clapped her boyfriend on the shoulder, and offered Marinette a smile.  “Don’t worry.  We’ll just try it again next week.  Nan has a concerning amount of boxes of dried elephant shit, so we could do this every week for a year if we have to.”

“Which you won’t,” Nino assured her.  “Because Adrien already has feelings for you and it won’t take more than once for him to stop being in denial.”

Marinette felt her face split into a smile.  Because this was good.  This was fantastic, really, because of course Nino would know the specifics of Adrien’s love life.  If Nino was so sure that Adrien already had feelings for her, even before this whole love potion thing, then Adrien clearly had feelings for her.

She couldn’t decide whether to scream or to pass out.

Alya, the good friend that she was, sensed Marinette’s indecision and grabbed her arm.

“Don’t worry, girl,” she said again, pulling her into the school.  “Adrien’s going to realize he’s in love with you soon if it’s the last thing I do.”

*********

_ Earlier that day... _

Adrien rolled over, hand flying blindly in search of the snooze button on his alarm.  He wasn’t ready to get up.  Getting up meant going to the photoshoot which meant missing school which meant not seeing his princess all day.

He sighed loudly, sinking deeper into the covers.  How was he supposed to survive another day without Marinette?  He’d barely seen her on Friday with the akuma that had made them cancel school after only an hour or so, and then they’d both been working—separately, unfortunately—on the geography project all weekend, and he hadn’t even thought to call her.

That was it!

He bolted upright, a grin spreading across his face.  He could call her!  Or, rather, text her, considering this was Marinette and she probably wouldn’t be awake for a while still.  God, she was adorable.

His phone was next to the alarm, and he scrolled through his contacts.  And he scrolled through again.  And again.  Because right there, right between Kim and Nathalie, right where Marinette’s name should have been, was nothing.

He dropped the phone in his lap, staring at it in horror.  Why didn’t he have Marinette’s number?  Why hadn’t he ever gotten her phone number in four years of friendship?  God, he was a horrible person.  Marinette was never going to love him back.

“What’s got you upset already, kid?  You haven’t even been up for ten minutes.”

Adrien looked away from his phone to pout at his kwami.  “Marinette will never love me, and I won’t be able to see her for a week, so I can’t even make it up to her.”

Plagg squinted at his chosen for a moment.  It wasn’t that unusual for Adrien to pine over his classmate, but it was usually with a lot less directness and a lot more denial.  Had he come to some sort of emotional epiphany in his sleep?

To be entirely honest, Plagg didn’t really care.  Something had happened to make Adrien let go of his denial, and that was completely fine.  It wasn’t any of his business how sudden this came on, so he wasn’t going to question any of it.  Not even the tiny hint of magic that may or may not have been clinging to Adrien’s hair.

Because, really, how bad could it be?  Even if this wasn’t Adrien coming to his senses and someone had put a spell on him, he was stopping being in denial of his adorable classmate who made fantastic cheese biscuits.  If you asked him, it was about time.

So whatever this was, it was going to end disastrously or hilariously, and either option was fine with Plagg.

He rolled his eyes.  “You’ll figure it out,” he drawled.  “Give her some cheese and some puns and she’ll be falling for you before you can blink.”

Adrien nodded in agreement.  He could do this.  He could make Marinette fall in love with him.  He could prove he loved her.

He’d do it right now.

He stood up, making his way towards the window in a trance.  There was no need to wear anything more than a pair of pyjama pants when his suit would just cover it.

“Plagg, Claws—”

He was interrupted, unfortunately, by a ball of fur flying at his face.  Plagg had caught onto his brilliant plan, and had, for once, decided to reign his chosen in rather than encourage him.

“Kid, your girlfriend can wait,” he assured him, ignoring the disappointed denial that Adrien gave under his breath.  “Nathalie’s going to be here any minute, and I haven’t gotten my cheese yet.”

Adrien cast a forlorn look out the window, before sighing and turning back to his room.  Plagg was right.  He wasn’t going to solve anything by charging out there without a plan.  The photoshoot would take a few hours, at the very least, and that would be more than enough time to figure out the perfect way to make Marinette fall in love with him.

Because it had to be perfect.  Anything less and he wouldn’t deserve her love.

He snatched a clean pair of underwear from his drawer and headed into the bathroom, a grin back on his face as he met his reflection’s eyes in the mirror.

Adrien Agreste was in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and he wasn’t going to sit around doing nothing about it anymore.

*********

“It’s really not that big a deal,” Alya was saying for about the millionth time, despite the fact that Marinette had long since stopped paying attention.  Because, really, she’d stopped moping sometime around second period when Nino had casually pointed out that Adrien was probably pining away at his photoshoot about not being able to see his love.  Picturing Adrien pining over her was quite the confidence booster.

But classes were finally over for the day, and Alya still thought she needed cheering up.

“We’ll just make the potion again next week,” she said, “when Adrien will definitely be around, and everything will work out perfectly.”

Of course, Marinette didn’t hear any of that, as she was trying to decide if Adrien was the poetry writing kind of piner or the staring forlornly at pictures of her kind.  Unfortunately, Alya didn’t seem to understand the meaning of her dazed expression, and took it to indicate that her friend was still down in the dumps.  So she elbowed Nino in the gut and sent him a look.

“And it’ll definitely work,” he added, and Alya stifled a snort at how quickly Marinette’s head shot up.  “Dude’s way too oblivious for his own good.  His crush on you is ridiculously obvious, but he still can’t figure it out.”

Marinette nodded slowly, eyes glazing over once more.  They’d gone over these same points all day, and it was still thrilling to know that Adrien had a crush on her.  Even if it didn’t work out this week, and she couldn’t see him at all and they had to make the potion again, chances were really, really high that she could have a boyfriend by the time this whole thing blew over.

So, yeah, maybe she’d have to wait another week, and maybe she’d have to drink rehydrated elephant shit again, but things were looking up as they rounded the corner away from the school.  Things were still looking up when Alya suggested ice cream.

And things were definitely looking up when a large black shape fell from the sky and held out an oversized bouquet of sunflowers to her.

Wait…

“Chat Noir?”  Marinette glanced between the flowers and her partner before sharing a look of confusion with her friends.  “What are you doing?”

Chat straightened from his bow, offering her a dopey grin.  “It’s been far too long since you’ve blessed me with your presence, ma princesse,” he purred, reaching for her hand and bringing it to his lips.  The feeling of his kiss was strange without her suit in between, and the shock of that was the only thing that kept her from pulling her hand back.  “Don’t you know a cat will go crazy if he can’t see his love?”

Marinette did pull her hand back then, choking on nothing.  What the hell was going on?  Why was Chat calling her his love?  Did that mean he’d figured out she was Ladybug?  No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening!  It wasn’t allowed to happen.  Not yet, anyway, and definitely not when it wasn’t on her terms.

She vaguely registered that Alya and Nino were staring at her with wide eyes, but her focus was taken by her partner.

"What—what are you talking about?" 

Chat clasped his hands behind his back, that ridiculously sized gorgeous bouquet swinging in their path.  “I guess I haven’t told you yet, huh?”  His grin turned sheepish, and he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, eyes gazing into hers with such an earnest intensity that she had to take a slight step back.  “I love you, Marinette.  I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore.”  Chat’s grin grew, and he swung his arms wide, spinning in a circle.  “I’ll scream it to the world!  My name is Chat Noir, and I am in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng!  I—"

Marinette cut him off as she slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes darting around at the few people on the streets who’d stopped to stare and face heating up.  She noticed Alya’s phone out as she recorded with a shit eating grin, but figured her friend could be talked into not posting whatever the heck was going on.  Nino’s face was a mix of confusion and amusement.

“What are you talking about?” she asked again, voice a hissed whisper.  “You don’t love me.  What about Ladybug?”

She felt bad using herself as a cover, but she had to figure out what was going on.  If he knew she was Ladybug, he could use this as an opportunity to let her know he knew.  If not, well, she could hopefully figure out what was going on.

Chat pressed a tender kiss to her palm before removing it from his face, and waved the bouquet in dismissal.  “Ladybug has never returned my feelings,” he assured her, and Marinette felt her confusion rise.  “You’re the one I love, Princess.”

Of course, none of that cleared up any of what was actually going on.   _ If he doesn’t know I’m Ladybug, then what—oh.  _

"Shit." 

Alya finally lost what little control she had over her laughter and collapsed in a fit of giggles, handing her phone off to Nino so he could continue filming. 

Marinette sighed, running a hand through her hair.  “I’m very, uh, flattered, Chat Noir,” she said, shuffling from foot to foot and avoiding his eyes.  God, this was so difficult.  Did she really have to reject him?  Would it be wrong to send him off on some week long quest until the spell wore off, if that was even what was causing this?  Yes, she decided, it would be.  “But you don’t actually love me.”

Chat Noir seemed appalled by that idea, gasping and eyes widening in horror.  He thrust the flowers at Nino, who fumbled slightly with the camera as he caught it, and clutched Marinette’s hands in his own, pulling them to his chest, shaking his head wildly.

“Of course I love you!” he insisted, squeezing her hands.  “Who couldn’t love someone as amazing as you?  What do I have to do to prove my love?  Whatever it is, I’ll do it.  I promise.”

Marinette’s breath caught in her throat at the overwhelming desperation in Chat’s eyes and voice.  Was this the work of the spell?  Because that’s what it seemed like.  Why else would Chat be in love with her overnight for no reason?

But if this was the spell, then that meant that Chat Noir was her true love.  Which was not allowed.  Because her true love was meant to be Adrien.  That was what was supposed to happen.  That was what she drank rehydrated elephant shit for.

So if this wasn’t the spell, then it must be a love akuma.  Those were totally a thing.

Yes.  Chat Noir was not in love with her, he was not under her love spell, and he was definitely not her true love.  He was simply under the influence of a love akuma.  Obviously.

Unfortunately, it took her too long to come to that confusion, and Chat had run out of patience on waiting for direction on how to prove his love to Marinette.  He’d dropped her hands and started pacing, hands running through his hair.

“Should I get a skywriter?” he wondered aloud, desperately searching Marinette’s face for a reaction as he paced.  “Or serenade you?  I’ve been told I have a meow-velous singing voice.  I could write a song, too, if that’s what it takes.  Or do I need to shout it from the rooftops?”  He stopped pacing, eyes pleading as he stared into her soul.  “Marinette, please help me out a little.  What do I need to do to prove my love?”

Marinette was at a loss.  Because, on the one hand, this was really, really flattering.  Chat Noir, claiming to be in love with her as Marinette, not just as Ladybug?

But on the other hand, this clearly wasn’t real and Chat was under the influence of...something, for sure, and she had to put a stop to this.

She took his hands in hers, forcing a reassuring smile onto her face.  “Chat,” she said, drawing out his name as she tried to figure out where this sentence was going.  “You don’t have to prove your love to me.”  He started to relax, that adoring grin started to surface, until she finished with, “Because it’s not real.”

Chat panicked again, clutching her hands tightly.  “It  _ is _ real,” he insisted, eyes roving wildly over his face.  “Marinette, Princess, I love you.  I love you so much, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to prove it to you.  Please, Marinette, you have to believe me.”

Marinette glanced over at Alya and Nino for help, but her friends, though no longer dying of laughter, only shrugged.

She looked back up at Chat, who was gazing at her with such desperation that he looked seconds away from crying, and sighed.

“Look, Chat,” she said, pausing again as she tried to pick an angle that wouldn’t make her partner burst into tears.  “I understand that you  _ believe _ you’re really in love with me, but you’re not.  It’s a love akuma or _ — _ or something, but it’s not real.”

Chat stared at her for a moment.  “There wasn’t any akuma,” he assured her.  “There hasn’t been an akuma since Friday.  My feelings for you are real, Marinette.”  He dropped her hands so he could caress her cheek.  “I promise you, Princess, I would never lie about something like this.”

Marinette sighed again, stepping out of his hold.  “I know, Chat, but _ — _ ”

He cut her off with a shake of his head, throwing his arms wide.  “I love you, Marinette,” he said, voice louder than it had to be.  Marinette could see people snapping pictures from across the street.  “Whether you believe me or not, you’ve captured this cat’s heart, and I’m not going to stop until I’ve proved it to you.”

“Chat,” Marinette hissed, knowing her face was rivaling her suit in colour but unable to do anything about it.  “We’re in the middle of the street!  Don’t you think you could be a little more, I don’t know, subtle about this?”

“No!”  Chat shook his head, pulling the sunflowers back from Nino.  “I can’t be subtle about this.  You already don’t believe my love, Princess.  How am I supposed to prove it to you by being  _ subtle _ ?”

Marinette opened her mouth to point out again that he couldn’t prove his love when it wasn’t real, but Alya jumped in before she could.

“I think what Marinette is trying to say,” she started, the grin on her face contradicting the seriousness of her tone, “is that you’re out here, in public, proclaiming your love.  Anyone could put this on the internet, and it’d go viral, and then Hawkmoth would find out and Marinette would be in danger.  So maybe try somewhere more private?”  She waggled her eyebrows and Marinette, while thankful for her friend’s help, was also ready to kill Alya for suggesting that discussing this love akuma problem in private would lead to something eyebrow waggle worthy.

But Chat seemed to get the picture, eyes going wide as he finally seemed to take in the fact that he was not alone with Marinette at the moment.

“I’m sorry, Princess,” he whispered, thrusting the flowers into her hands.  “Please forgive me for being such a fool.  I can’t believe I put you in danger like that.”

Marinette sighed again, reluctantly accepting the flowers _ — _ which were her favourites.  She wasn’t sure how Chat knew that, but somehow he did.  Or he just had a really lucky guess.

“I forgive you,” she said, and Chat practically melted in relief.

“You are far too kind, ma princesse,” he said, reaching out to tuck a wayward lock of hair behind her ear.  “Can I come see you tonight?”

She wanted to say no.  She wanted to give some sort of excuse that would keep Chat away from her until this love potion _ — _ ahem, love  _ akuma— _ blew over.

But he was her partner.  And there was a chance _ — _ a very, very slim chance _ — _ that this was her fault.

So she found herself sighing once more.  “Come to my balcony at eight,” she said, and Chat’s face lit up like he’d gotten a new bike for Christmas, and a fond smile stretched across her face without her permission.

“I’m already counting down the hours,” he promised, and stood there, grinning like the lovestruck dork he was, for another moment.  And then he was darting forward to press a quick kiss against her cheek before disappearing over the rooftops.

Marinette shook herself, ignored the lingering feeling of his lips against her skin, and turned to her friends.

“So, there’s some sort of love akuma out there, huh?”

She felt her face heat up impossibly more as she waited for her friends’ laughter to die down.

Alya wiped tears from her eyes and pocketed her phone before patting her friend on the shoulder.  “Please tell me you’re not oblivious enough to think that that was actually what was going on,  _ Princess _ .”

Marinette opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and her eyes fell to the bouquet in her arms.  She groaned loudly, spinning around and digging her free hand into her hair.

“I didn’t drink rehydrated elephant shit for Chat Noir to be my true love!” she hissed.  “It was supposed to be Adrien!  That’s the whole reason I did this!”

Nino glanced at Alya and shrugged.  “I mean, Adrien’s my best friend and all, but Mari, dude, your true love is a freaking superhero.  That’s pretty cool.”

Marinette glanced down at the flowers again, her favourite flowers _ —how did he know that?— _ and let the truth finally sink in.

Chat Noir was under her love spell.  Which meant that Chat Noir was her true love.

She groaned again.  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked, glancing between Alya and Nino for help.  “Chat Noir can’t be my true love.  I’m not in love with him.”

Alya offered her a sympathetic smile.  “Nobody said you had to be,” she pointed out, and swung an arm around Marinette’s shoulders, tugging her friend into her side.  “So Chat Noir is your true love _ — _ which, by the way, is totally awesome and we’re going to freak out about it later _ — _ but so what?  That doesn’t mean you need to fall in love with him right now.  It’d probably be a pretty stupid idea to anyway, since he’s only in love with you because of magic and he’s usually in love with Ladybug.  But maybe one day you’ll fall in love and be happy and get to date Chat fucking Noir.

“But right now all you have to do is be nice to him for a week and let him hang out with you and try to woo you, and then everything will go back to normal and you can make a move on Adrien next Monday when he’s back in class.”

Marinette was quiet, mulling it over.  Chat Noir was her true love.  She had to accept that.  But, like Alya said, just because he was her true love didn’t mean that she  _ had _ to be with him.  It was  _ true _ love not  _ only _ love, after all.

So she nodded.  “I can do this,” she said, because she could.  She could deal with Chat Noir being in love with both of her identities for a week.  She could deal with him trying to woo her for a week.  She could deal with Alya and Nino never letting her live this down ever.  And she could deal with waiting until next Monday to make a non-magic-related move on Adrien.

She could do this.

But first things first.

Marinette turned back to Alya, narrowing her eyes.  “You’d better not be putting that video on the Ladyblog,” she warned, pointing a threatening finger.

Alya pushed the finger away with a grin.  “Of course not, girl.  This” _ — _ she paused, pulling out her phone to wave it in her friend’s face _ — _ “is for our eyes only.  And, eventually, the eyes of everyone at your wedding to him.  Or, if he hasn’t defeated Hawkmoth by then, your grandkids.”  She re-pocketed her phone with a shrug.  “I wasn’t kidding, Mari.  If Hawkmoth finds out that Chat Noir’s in love with you, it won’t be good.  It never ends well for the love interests in comic books when the villain finds out.”

“I’m not a love interest,” Marinette snorted, rolling her eyes.

Alya snorted.  “Babe, a superhero is in love with you,” she pointed out.  “You kinda are.”

*********

Adrien’s transformation dropped as he touched down back inside his dressing room.

“How’d it go with your girlfriend?” Plagg asked, pausing at the look on his chosen’s face.  “That bad, huh?”

Adrien groaned, sinking onto the bench.  “She doesn’t believe me,” he informed his kwami.  “Why doesn’t she believe me?”

Plagg shrugged, already bored with the conversation and itching to dive into the Camembert pocket in Adrien’s bag.  “Maybe because Chat Noir’s only met her, like, twice?” he suggested.

Adrien shrugged, unconvinced, and ran a hand through his hair.  “She wants to meet up tonight,” he sighed, imagining the hypothetical kissing they could get up to.  If he could convince her he really was in love with her, that is.

Maybe she was just in shock earlier.  Anyone would be, he assumed, if a famous superhero was suddenly declaring their love for them with no warning.  He couldn’t really blame her for not believing him.  Maybe by the time they met up again she’d have processed it.  Maybe she’d be ready to accept it.

He grinned to himself, ignoring whatever it was that Plagg was prattling on about.  Marinette was amazing, and god she’d looked adorable in that sundress she was wearing.  She’d probably made it herself.  She was so talented and gorgeous and brilliant and amazing and he would be the luckiest person in the universe if she decided to love him back.

The door rattled before slamming open, jolting Adrien out of his musings.  His eyes darted to the black blur that disappeared into his bag before focusing on the figure in his doorway.

Nathalie scowled at him in a mixture of annoyance and relief.  “Where the hell have you been?”

Adrien weighed his choices for a moment before shrugging.  “Bathroom?”

Nathalie didn’t seem to believe him, not that he blamed her, and simply sighed.  “You’re putting us behind schedule,” she told him, ushering him to stand.  “Your father isn’t pleased.”

Of course he wasn’t.  Maybe running off in the middle of a photoshoot hadn’t been the best plan, but he was going crazy with needing to see Marinette.

But it wasn’t like he could use his love life as an excuse.  So he sighed and stood and followed Nathalie back to the cameras and his father.


	3. A Spell that Can't Be Broken

Marinette collapsed face first in her bed with a desperate wail.

Tikki landed softly on the back of her head and gently rubbed her hair in confused comfort until the wail subsided.  “What’s wrong?”

Her chosen sighed loudly and rolled onto her back, the kwami barely managing to flit away before being squished, and pressed her hands into her eyes.

“Adrien’s not my true love,” she whispered.  “I mean, I knew that when Chat showed up and all, but, I don’t know.  It just hit me, I guess.”

“Oh, Marinette,” Tikki cooed, pressing herself into her chosen’s neck.  “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“But it does.”  Marinette threw her arms out to the sides so she could stare blankly at the roof.  “He’s not my true love, and I can’t unknow that.  We’re not meant to be together.”

Tikki was still talking, still reassuring her, but Marinette couldn’t listen.  Because Adrien wasn’t her true love.  Served her right for thinking that drinking rehydrated elephant shit would do any good.

She supposed Chat Noir was a pretty good person to end up with as her true love.  But he wasn’t Adrien, and she was allowed to mourn the guy she’d been in love with for four years.  Maybe she still had a chance.  If what Nino claimed was true, she had more than a chance.  So, really, she could be with Adrien if she wanted to.

But would it be worth it, if they weren’t meant to end up together?

God, she felt terrible.  It’d have been one thing if Adrien was her true love, as it should have been.  That was why she’d drank the stupid potion in the first place.

But it was Chat, and she wasn’t in love with him.  So the fact that he was in love with her now, even though he wasn’t actually, really complicated things.  And wasn’t magically forcing someone to be in love with you when neither of you were actually in love with the other against some sort of law?  If it wasn’t, it definitely should be.  As Marinette was discovering, love potions were morally conflicting.

Too deep in her wallowing, Marinette missed the soft thump of someone landing on her balcony.  Tikki, however, did not miss it, and gave her chosen a final comforting pat before disappearing.

And then the knock came.

Marinette startled at the sound, jumping upright.  She glanced around to make sure her kwami wasn’t anywhere visible, and took a steadying breath.  A second, more hesitant knock came, and she stood to push open the hatch.

Chat Noir grinned down at her.  “Hi.”

Marinette swallowed heavily and glanced over at the sunflowers on her desk.  She still didn’t know how she’d managed to sneak that in without her parents seeing it, and she was not looking forward to that eventual conversation.

But, right now, she had to focus on a different unfortunate conversation.

She sighed, glancing back at Chat and offering him an awkward smile.  “Hi.”  She motioned for him to move out of the way and climbed up onto her balcony.

Chat watched her scramble out, shifting from foot to foot.  “We’re not going to talk inside?”

“My parents are still awake,” Marinette pointed out, and Chat nodded in understanding.  She still didn’t know how to explain the flowers, let alone why she had a superhero in her bedroom at eight o’clock at night.

Chat watched her shut the hatch before taking a deep breath and readying himself to talk.

“Wait!”  Marinette held her hands up, halting Chat’s words.  “Before you say anything, I need to explain something.  Please.”  Chat pouted, but waved her on.  Marinette swallowed heavily.  “Yesterday, my friend Alya found a spell for a potion in her grandma’s things.  We didn’t think it would work or anything, not really, but we decided to try it on me.”

“What kind of a potion?” Chat asked, then mimed zipping his lips.  “Sorry.”

Marinette sighed and ran a hand through her hair.  “A love potion.”  She cringed as she said it.  What part of her had ever thought that a freaking love potion would be a good idea?  “It was supposed to make my true love fall madly in love with me for a week.”  She dropped her gaze and her hand, reaching down to tug at her shirt.  “And then you showed up proclaiming your love earlier.  So, I mean, you’re my true love, I guess, but you aren’t actually in love with me.  I’m sorry.”

Chat was already shaking his head, stepping forward to pull Marinette’s worrying hands into his own.  “Princess, that’s not true.”  Marinette winced at the pleading in his voice, the raw emotion in his words.  He reached for her chin, tilting it up so she was forced to see the desperation in his eyes.  “I love you, Marinette.  I promise that this, what I feel, it’s real.  It’s not because of some potion, but it might be because I’m your true love.”  The grin he offered was weak and fell quickly.  “I am in love with you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and I promise you that it’s real.”

Marinette pulled away from him.  “That’s the love spell talking,” she said, internally cringing at how bluntly she’d put that.   _ Are you trying to break his heart?  No, you can’t break his heart because he’s not really in love with you, remember?  You could be a little nicer though.  Jesus, Marinette.  Don’t kill the guy. _  She tried to backtrack.  “I mean _ — _ ”

“ _ Please _ .”  Chat cut her off, reaching out but forcing himself to stop just short of touching her.  “I’m not under any spell, Marinette.  I love you more than anything, and I’ll do whatever it takes to prove that to you.  I promise I will.  Please tell me what I have to do to prove it.”

Marinette took a shaky breath.  Why was this so hard?  Why couldn’t he just accept that his feelings weren’t real?  A love potion wasn’t that hard to swallow was it?  (Pun not intended.  Love potions were really hard to swallow, if she was being honest.  Especially when they contained rehydrated elephant shit.)  He was a superhero, for god’s sake.  How much more unbelievable could a love potion be?

“Were you in love with me yesterday?”

Chat cocked his head.  “What?”

“Were you in love with me yesterday?” Marinette repeated, running her hand through her hair again.

Chat’s tail twitched as he nodded wildly.  “Of course,” he said, taking a step closer.  His hand jumped as if on reflex, brushing gently over her shoulder.  “Marinette, you’re amazing.  How could I not be in love with you?”

Marinette swallowed, the weight of his hand on her shoulder taking more of her focus than it should.  Was he telling the truth?  He couldn’t be, could he?  There was no way Chat Noir could have been in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng before she took the potion, right?  Ladybug, sure, but he’d only met her as Marinette a handful of times.  Definitely not enough times for him to fall in love with her.

So this had to be the potion talking, too, right?  Something in the elephant shit was clearly messing with his head, making him think he’s been in love with her since before this morning.

She needed to shut this whole thing down before it got too out of hand.  Tell him she’s not interested and send him on his way.  That was what she needed to do, and she needed to do it now.

But he was looking at her, with those big, pleading eyes, with such desperation written on his face, that she couldn’t do it.

She sighed again, glancing down.  Chat’s hand tightened on her shoulder.

“Please,” he said again, voice cracking on the word.  “Please tell me what I need to do.  I’ll do anything.”

Marinette bit her lip and glanced up at him.  Which was about as big a mistake as she could have made.

“Monday,” she found herself saying, hating herself for the spark of hope that blossomed in his eyes.  “If you’re still in love with me next Monday, I’ll believe you.  And I’ll _ — _ I’ll consider dating you.”

The grin that spread across his face was like a knife to her heart.  “Really?”  She nodded slowly, and Chat darted forward, pulling her into his arms and pressing his face into her neck.  “Thank you.  I swear, I’ll do everything I can to prove it to you before then.  I love you, Marinette.  I love you so much.”

She pressed her lips together tightly and hugged him back.  What had she gotten herself into?

*********

Adrien let his transformation drop as he came through the window, not even pausing long enough to listen to Plagg’s grumbles for cheese as he sprinted across the room, sliding on his socks and almost knocking over his desk chair.

“What lit your pants on fire?” Plagg wanted to know, floating over to land on his chosen’s shoulder once Adrien had finally managed to land in the chair and not on the floor.  “Your girlfriend finally said yes?”

Adrien sighed loudly, leg bouncing as he waited for the computer to start up.  “She said maybe,” he sighed, and Plagg didn’t have the heart to point out that a maybe probably didn’t warrant that much of a love sick sigh.  “She said if I’m still in love with her in a week, she’ll consider me.”

Plagg watched the screen turn on.  “So you’re just going to wait a week and do nothing?”

“Of course not.”  Adrien turned his head enough to give his kwami a disgusted look.  “I’m going to woo her so hard she won’t know what hit her.”

“Right,” Plagg agreed.  “Because that’s worked so well with Ladybug.”

Adrien sighed, clicking far too many times on the internet icon.  “Marinette’s not Ladybug,” he pointed out.  “She’s...There’s no supervillain stopping us from being together, Plagg.  There’s  _ nothing _ stopping us from being together.  And she’s just so amazing and gorgeous and wonderful and I need to show her that I’m serious about her.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Plagg wondered, and Adrien froze, fingers poised over his keyboard.

“I don’t know.”  He frowned down at the keys, as though the held the secrets to making Marinette fall in love with him.  “I don’t know how to woo someone and actually make it work.”

Plagg sighed again, taking pity on his chosen.  “Girls like it when you do something unusual,” he said.  “Something they’re not expecting.”

Adrien nodded, the spark returning to his eye and the grin to his face.  “That should work,” he said, fingers flying over the keyboard.  “We’re going to woo her pants off, Plagg.  But not literally.  I mean, unless she wants to.  I’d be down.”

Plagg rolled his eyes as he watched the words emerge in the search bar.

_ Unusual ways to woo a girl _

This wasn’t going to backfire at all.


	4. Just to Make Him Sweet

Marinette didn’t get much sleep that night.  She already had to deal with Chat Noir trying to woo her as Ladybug, and now she had to deal with it as Marinette, too?  She really hoped that Hawkmoth had no big plans this week, because she didn’t think she’d be able to survive a double ended assault.

And then there was the fact that Adrien wasn’t her true love, which wasn’t something she really wanted to think about.

The third thing that kept her up was the fact that she was pretty sure she was having a bad reaction to something in the love potion.  It was probably the elephant shit.  Or one of the other dozens of ingredients that humans weren’t meant to ingest.

But the point was, she hadn’t gotten much sleep.  Which was why the ringing doorbell barely managed to rouse her interest enough to crawl out from under the covers.

Mistake number one.

(Or was that mistake number three?  After drinking a love potion and then letting Chat think he had an actual chance instead of letting him down easily.  It was mistake number one for Tuesday, anyway.  Awake for two minutes and already racking up a tab.  Keeping it real, Marinette.)

While Marinette was busy ignoring the doorbell, her mother was doing the opposite.  Sabine left the bakery and went to their private door, opening it to reveal a delivery man.

“Package for, uh, Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” he said, glancing down at his clipboard.

Sabine’s eyes were trained on the package.  “She’s upstairs,” she said slowly, and signed for the package.

Marinette was roused once more by her mother calling for her, a sound which wasn’t as easy to ignore as a ringing doorbell.  So she crawled out of bed, duvet wrapped around her shoulders like a cape and hair sticking out at random angles, and made her way downstairs.

Only to stop and stare at the basket resting on the counter.

“Why did you buy so many Crème Eggs?” she wondered, making her way closer to admire the plethora of her favourite chocolates.  There had to be at least a couple hundred in the basket.

“They were just delivered,” Sabine told her, eyeing her daughter for any clue as to why she’d be receiving hundreds of Cadbury Crème Eggs.  “For you.”

Marinette’s eyes darted over to her mom for a moment before returning to the delicacy in front of her.  “Who sent me Crème Eggs?”

Sabine shrugged.  “There’s a note.”

Her daughter then noticed the card fastened to the basket, and she pulled it off.  She could feel her face heat up as she read the words carefully etched inside.

_ Princess, I’m not yolking when I shell you how much you’ve scrambled my heart.  When I see you, my day turns sunny side up, and I can never get un oeuf of you.  Love— _

“So?” Her mother inched closer, and Marinette could tell she was itching to peer over her shoulder to read the card for herself.  “Who’s it from?”

Marinette glanced back at the words.  “My secret egg-mirer.”

She could sense the grin her mother was wearing without even turning in her direction.  “Do you have any idea who it is?”

Marinette knew exactly who it was.  There was only one person who could think that egg puns would be romantic.

“No.”

Her mother reached out to pat her on the shoulder.  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she said, turning to head back down to the bakery.  “Be sure to bring them over for dinner if anything happens between you two.”

Marinette nodded, an awkward grin on her face.  Sure.  Bring Chat Noir over for dinner.  Because that wasn’t destined to end in anything other than disaster.

Sabine finally disappeared, and Marinette dropped her grin.  She glanced between the card in her hand and the basket of chocolates for a long moment.  What the hell was she supposed to do with hundreds of Crème Eggs?

*********

Marinette hadn’t made it on school in time to hang out with Alya and Nino before classes started, and they didn’t share any until after lunch.  Which was why Alya’s onslaught in the cafeteria was completely expected.

“So,” her friend said, tray crashing loudly as she dropped it onto their table.  “Are we in mourning that Adrien’s not your true love mode still, or have we moved onto freaking out that Chat fucking Noir is your true love?”

Marinette sighed, lugging her heavy backpack onto the table.  “I think we’re in the ‘wondering why Chat Noir would send me five hundred Crème Eggs’ stage.”  She unzipped the backpack to make her point, the contents of which consisted entirely of Crème Eggs, though considerably less than she’d had this morning.  You couldn’t blame her for eating a few dozen.  They were her favourites, after all.

Nino’s eyes brightened, and he dug a hand into the backpack.  “Chat Noir bought you five hundred Crème Eggs?” he repeated as he unwrapped a chocolate.  “Like, that was an actual thing that happened?”

“Yes.”  Marinette groaned and buried her face in her arms.  “And my mom was the one who answered the door for the delivery, so now she knows I have a secret egg-mirer, and I’m never going to live this down.”

Alya rubbed her consolingly on the back and took an egg for herself.  “It could be worse,” she pointed out.  “You could have gotten someone terrible as your true love, instead of a guy who sends you your favourite flowers and chocolates.”

“Right,” Nino agreed.  “And, you know, Adrien’s my best friend and all, but Chat Noir is really pulling me over to his side.”  He stuffed another egg into his mouth, and Marinette swore he didn’t chew it before swallowing.  “Like, really, man.  If you can get free chocolates out of this deal, I say forget about Adrien and marry the dude now.  Heck, I might marry him for you.”

Marinette laughed, straightening up and digging into the non-chocolate part of her lunch.  “You can have him,” she offered.  “I’m gonna stick with Adrien for now.  Besides, how ridiculous is this whole thing?  How much money do you have to spend to get five hundred Crème Eggs?”

Alya already had her phone out.  “Well, a box of six is around twenty euros, multiply that by eighty four to get five hundred and four eggs and that’s one thousand, six hundred eighty euros.”  Alya raised an eyebrow over her phone, eyeing Marinette.  “I mean, he probably got a deal by buying five hundred at once, but that’s still a lot of money.  Either your beau is rich as heck, or he’s going broke between this and however much he spent on those flowers yesterday.”

Marinette knew it was the first option, but, since it was technically Ladybug who had found out that Chat was rich enough to still have a nanny and have no idea how much a jug of milk cost, she really didn’t have an excuse as to how Marinette could have learned that little tidbit.

So she sighed.  “I’ll talk to him about it tonight,” she promised, knowing that she would.  “It’s the spell that’s making him like me.  I can’t be responsible for him blowing all his savings on chocolates and flowers.”

Alya hummed in agreement.  “It is sweet, though,” she pointed out.  “I mean, somehow he managed to find out your favourite flower and chocolate in, like, no time.  That takes some dedication.”

“It’s because of the love spell.”  Marinette scowled at her sandwich.  “He’s not really interested in me.”

“Everyone’s interested in you, babe,” Alya assured her.  “It’s your curse.”

Marinette rolled her eyes.  “Well, Chat Noir isn’t,” she declared.  “And he’s not going to be in love with me next Monday.  That would make things weird.”

Nino and Alya shared a look.  “Why would that make things weird?” Nino wondered, leaning forward in interest.  “What, exactly, went down last night?”

Marinette stared down at her sandwich, pulling the bread into little pieces.  “I might have told him that if he was still in love with me on Monday, I’d consider going out with him.”

She winced at Alya’s squeal.  “So you’ve been hiding from me all day that you could theoretically have a superhero boyfriend next week?”

Marinette shook her head.  “ _ If _ he’s still in love with me,” she reminded her friends.  “Which he won’t be, because he’s only actually in love with me because of the spell.”

Alya’s grin grew.  “ _ Or _ he’s been in love with you for, like, ever, and this love spell is just bringing it to the surface.”  She clapped her hands.  “This could be great, Marinette.”

The bell rang and Marinette rolled her eyes as she stood.  “It’s not gonna happen,” she assured her friends.  “So can we just focus on getting through this week and eating a ridiculous amount of chocolate and then never talk about this again?”

Nino laughed and swung an arm around her shoulders.  “Sure, Mari.”

*********

Marinette was half asleep listening to M. Darneux drone on about ley lines.  Kim and Nino were in front of her, and had already built half a castle out of empty cereal boxes—where they’d found them, she wasn’t sure—and Alya had already redone the entire Ladyblog layout.

All in all, geography was about as interesting as it ever was.  Which was not at all.

Marinette sighed, eyes dropping to the doodles on her page.  She’d scrawled her first name in loopy hand writing, but the pencil had frozen at the start of the surname.  Normally she’d unconsciously finish it off with  _ Agreste _ , but that didn’t quite feel right.  Not that she wasn’t still in love with Adrien, but it seemed weird to be when he wasn’t her true love.

She sighed, quickly scribbling out her own last name and shoving her paper away.  She wasn’t going to think about that now, not while she was in class.  She didn’t have to think about Adrien or Chat Noir at all for the next few hours.

The door slammed open, and the class jumped, turning to stare at the panting principal.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, leaning heavily on the door frame.  “Chat Noir is here.  He needs to speak with Marinette Dupain-Cheng.  Apparently she has information that could help with an ongoing akuma attack.”

Marinette felt her face heat up as she stood.  How was she supposed to get out of this?  If there was an ongoing akuma attack, why hadn’t Alya been trying to get out of class to go watch?  Why hadn’t she found out about it?  God, Chat was going to think she was slacking off, missing the attack to sleep through geography.

She ran through excuses as she followed the principal to the front of the school, trying to find a good enough reason as to why she couldn’t stay to chat with Chat.  Something that would get her alone for long enough to transform and help.

Chat’s mouth twitched into a small grin as they approached.  “Thank you, sir,” he said, shaking the principal’s hand.  “I’ll take it from here.  I’m sure you’re very busy.”

They waited for the principal to return to the school, and then Chat was pulling her around the side and into an alleyway.

“Princess,” he purred, leaning down to press a kiss against her hand.  “Did you get the chocolates?”

Marinette blinked at him.  “Who got akumatized?” she asked.  “Why do you think I know something about it?”

Chat grinned as he straightened, twining their fingers together.  “It  _ was _ a pretty brilliant excuse, wasn’t it?  No one’s going to deny letting Chat Noir have a private audience with someone who supposedly has information.”

“Wait.”  Marinette frowned at him.  “There isn’t an akuma attack?”

Chat shook his head.  “I just wanted to see you,” he said, gazing down at their joined fingers.  “I couldn’t wait until tonight.”

Marinette let herself relax.  There was no akuma.  That was good.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” she wondered, but Chat shook his head again.

“Father pulled me out for the week to help with the family business,” he explained with a shrug.  “I  _ am _ going to get in shit for skipping out on that, though.”  He pulled their hands upwards, pressing them against his chest.  “But I wanted to know if you liked your gift.”

Marinette laughed breathily.  “Crème Eggs are my favourites,” she allowed, offering him a smile.  “I don’t know how you knew that.  Or about the sunflowers, for that matter.  But it was really excessive, Chat.  You can’t spend that kind of money on me.”

Chat pressed a kiss to her fingers.  “You deserve it,” he told her.  Marinette opened her mouth to protest, but Chat continued before she could.  “I’ll try to spend less if it makes you feel better, though.”

“Thank you.”  Marinette sighed, pulling her hand back.  “Also, I thought you were going to try to be subtle?  My mom saw the eggs, and she’s going to ask questions.”

“I’ll be sure to keep further presents from your mom,” he assured her.  “And the rest of the general public.”

“Good.”  Marinette nodded and glanced towards the end of the alley.  “I should get back to class.”

Chat pouted, his hand darting out to brush her hair back behind her ear.  “I’ll miss you, Princess.”

Marinette turned away to hide the heat that was flooding her cheeks.  “I’ll see you tonight.”

She made her way back into the school, and sunk into her chair while avoiding the eyes of her class.  Alya’s grin was something she could not, however, ignore.

“There’s no akuma attack, is there?”

Marinette sighed and shook her head.  “No.  He wanted to know if I liked the chocolates.”

Alya snorted.  “Of course he did.”

*********

Marinette was eternally grateful that the rest of the day passed without any Chat Noir Incidents.  There were no akuma attacks, either, a fact which she was just as happy about.  She didn’t know if she could handle listening to Chat gush about her while they fought a villain.  Tikki had  also pointed out that there was a chance that he’d figure out her identity if she transformed, thanks to the love spell and Chat’s newfound ability to instantly spot his Princess in a crowd.  So she was doubly happy that Hawkmoth seemed to have better things to do this week than make her life even more complicated than it already was.

She had been blankly staring at a Word document with little progress for the better part of an hour when the knock came on her balcony door, startling her more than she’d ever admit.  Her heart was still beating wildly when Tikki disappeared with a smirk.

Marinette sighed, running a hand through her hair, and made her way up to the loft.  She pushed open the door.

“Good evening, Princess,” Chat said, and a hand was thrust into Marinette’s face.  She took it, allowing him to help her up.  Of course, Marinette being Marinette, she still managed to trip over the lip of the window and stumbled into his chest.

Not that Chat seemed to mind, seeing as he took the opportunity to tug her even closer, and something hard pressed into her back as he hugged her tight.  Marinette wrapped her arms around him, hugging back, because Chat Noir gave great hugs and she should really take advantage of them more often.

“Looks like you’re falling for me already.”

Or not.

She rolled her eyes, pushing herself out of his grip.  “Hello, Chat,” she said, raising a brow at how quickly his hands disappeared behind his back.

He grinned at her, not saying anything, and seemed content to just be in her presence for the moment.  Marinette’s returning smile grew more and more awkward as the seconds passed, and she tried to come up with any topic at all to get him talking.

Thankfully it didn’t take too much longer for him to remember whatever object he’d been hiding from her, and Marinette only hoped it wasn’t terribly expensive.

“I have something for you,” he told her, face lighting up.  “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

“You’re not going to hand me something gross, are you?” she asked.  “Like a dead rat or something, like a real housecat?”

Chat gasped, pressing the hand that wasn’t holding his present against his chest in mock horror.  “I would never.”

Marinette smiled and closed her eyes, holding her hands out.  Something was quickly pressed into them, and she tried to figure out what it was as he adjusted its balance on her palms.

“Okay,” Chat finally said.  “You can look.”

Marinette opened her eyes, taking in her gift.  It was a flower pot, painted black with green paw prints, a green ribbon wrapped around, and pink daisies sprouted from within.

“This is adorable,” she told him, shifting the pot to one hand and brushing her fingers over the petals.  “Did you make it?”

Chat laughed.  “Art is not one of my many talents, Princess,” he said.  “A couple of girl scouts were selling them near where I work today.  They had Ladybug ones, too, but I thought you’d a-purr-eciate your fur-avourite superhero more.”

Marinette snorted, but glanced up at him with a smile.  “Well, I love it,” she said, and his grin was so bright her breath caught in her throat.

_ What was wrong with her? _  She shook her head and turned away.  “Let’s go inside.”

She didn’t look at Chat again until she’d situated her new plant on her desk.  He’d made it down to the floor and was rocking back and forth on his heels, looking like a kid in a candy store.

“So,” he said, drawing out the word.  Marinette could practically see the excitement rolling off him.  “What’s the plan for tonight?”

Marinette glanced briefly at her computer before looking back at him.  “Well,” she started, shrugging.  “I was planning on writing an essay.”  She watched him physically deflate and rolled her eyes.  “But it’s not due till next week, so I guess we could watch a movie or something and I could write it later.”

Chat’s energy returned so quickly that it almost gave her whiplash, and Marinette couldn’t hold in her giggles.

“We have to be quiet though,” she warned him, removing her tablet from it’s charger and starting on the stairs up to her bed.  “My parents are asleep, and I don’t want to find out what they’ll do if they find you in my room in the middle of the night.”

“It’s only ten o’clock,” Chat pointed out, and Marinette rolled her eyes.

“I think they’ll care more about the fact that you’re in my room than what the actual time is.”  She clambered under her covers, ignoring Chat climbing the last few steps up to her bed as she waited for Netflix to load.  “What do you want to watch?”

Chat didn’t answer her, and she glanced up to find him crouched awkwardly by the top of the ladder, the roof too low for him to properly stand, and staring at her warily.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eyebrows scrunching together in confusion.  “Do you not want to watch a movie?”

“No, I do!”  He was quick to reassure her, but his awkwardness still remained.  One hand darted to the back of his neck, scratching at it.  If Marinette didn’t know any better, she would have thought he almost looked nervous.  “It’s just...that’s your bed.”

Marinette squinted at him for a second before snorting.  Who would have thought Chat Noir, infamous flirt, would be nervous about getting into bed with a girl?

“We’re just watching a movie,” she pointed out.  “Don’t worry, Chat.  I’m not going to try to corrupt your innocence.”

His face was red and he avoided looking at her as he crawled across her bed and under the covers, situating himself as far from her as possible.  It was cute, really, this concern.

_ What the heck, brain?  What are you thinking?  You definitely don’t think Chat is cute.  Not even a little bit. _

“Let’s watch this one,” she said, clicking on a random movie and hiding her reddening face.

“What’s it about?” Chat asked, inching slightly closer to better see the screen.

Marinette had to actually look at what movie she’d picked then, and, fortunately, it was one she actually liked.  Unfortunately, however, it was a romantic comedy, and she worried that Chat might get the wrong idea.

“It’s a rom-com,” she told him.  “And there’s a hot air balloon.”

“Hot air balloon?” he questioned, suddenly much closer but still not touching her.

“Yeah.”  Marinette watched the opening credits roll onto the screen.  “They’re really romantic.  I mean, this one catches on fire, and that kind of ruins the romance, but besides that.”

“Huh,” was all Chat said, and they settled in to watch the movie in silence.

“Marinette,” he whispered, about fifteen minutes in, when the love interests had finally met.  “Would you...Is there any chance you wouldn’t mind, you know, cuddling?  I won’t be upset if you say no, but I just—”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Marinette found herself saying, because, really, it was true.  She cuddled with Chat all the time as Ladybug, and he was a great cuddler.  

But she wasn’t Ladybug right now, and Marinette didn’t casually cuddle with Chat Noir.  Marinette  _ shouldn’t _ casually cuddle with Chat Noir, if she was being honest, because Chat Noir thought he was in love with her.  Would letting him cuddle her count as leading him on?

She couldn’t dwell on it for much longer, however, because he’d already tugged her into his side, his arms wrapping around her.

“Thanks, Princess,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over her skin from how closely his face was pressed into her neck.  She couldn’t control the shiver that travelled down her spine.

It didn’t take long for her to forget why it was a bad idea to be cuddling Chat, and she let herself relax into his hold, curling in closer.

She could feel the vibrations of his laughter through her whole body, and she smiled to herself at how nice this was.

Maybe, she found herself thinking as she absently played with his fingers, it wouldn’t be that bad to have Chat as her true love.

Not that she had feelings for him or anything.  No way.  That would be crazy.


	5. Wanna Know What it is Make the Boys Want More

Mme. Bustier was droning on about...something.  It was something to do with the essays they were supposed to be writing, Marinette was sure, or maybe their upcoming midterm, but she couldn’t bring herself to listen to what was actually going on.

What was Chat doing right now, she found herself wondering.  He’d said he was helping with the family business this week, so he wouldn’t be in school.  But what was the family business?  And what kind of family business involved taking someone out of school for an entire week?

Adrien, of course, was in a similar situation, but she doubted Chat was a model.  What were the chances that both of them would be pulled from class for the exact same week?  Maths wasn’t Marinette’s best class, but she was willing to bet that it wasn’t very high.

Besides, there was no way Adrien would be able to ditch set as often as Chat had been seeing her during the day, not with how much he complained about Nathalie and the Gorilla watching his every move.  If Chat was also a model, wouldn’t he face similar challenges?

She wondered if he’d visit during the day today again.  Most of her hoped he didn’t.  Max was already suspicious over yesterday’s visit since there were no reports anywhere about the akuma Chat had been “gathering information” about.  Thankfully Alya had been there with a lie good enough to satisfy Max, but Marinette knew they wouldn’t always be able to get away with it.

The door crashed open, and she jumped.  She relaxed when it was only Ivan returning from the bathroom, ignoring the itch of disappointment crawling under her skin.

Maybe there was a teeny, tiny, miniscule part of her that wanted him to show up.  But that was only because this lecture was so boring she was practically falling asleep.  Definitely not because she wanted to see him and enjoyed hanging out with him.

Alya elbowed her in the stomach and subtly pushed a piece of paper across their desk.  Mme. Bustier was able to catch texting like a hawk, which had lead to the class adapting to passing notes like a bunch of  nine year olds.

_ So… What did you and you-know-who talk about last night? _

Marinette rolled her eyes at Alya’s note, and then again at Alya herself.

_ You make it sound like I’ve been hanging out with Voldemort.  And we didn’t really do much talking. _

Alya snatched the paper back as soon as Marinette’s pen had left it.  It returned a moment later.

_!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

Marinette stared at the line of exclamation points for a long moment, the sudden excitement in Alya’s eyes only adding to her confusion.

And then she reread her own words and flushed deeply.

_ Not like that!!!  He bought me a plant but mostly we just cuddled and watched a movie.  Which is why there wasn’t much talking.  Because normal people don’t talk through a movie. _

She sent her friend a pointed look with the thinly veiled criticism of Alya’s movie watching habits, but then her mind was returning to the accidental double meaning of her words.  Had Alya really thought she’d been kissing Chat?  Why would she do that?  Sure, that one time she’d kissed him years ago when Kim had been akumatized had been really nice, and, yeah, he’d been a really good kisser, and maybe she’d thought about his lips for way too long after that.  But did any of that mean she wanted to kiss him again, in a non-akuma-related situation?  No.  Obviously not.

“Marinette?”

She was startled out of her thoughts by Mme. Bustier’s voice, the teacher looking at her expectantly.

“Um,” she said, desperately looking around for anything that could possibly hint at what she’d been asked about.  “Could you repeat the question?”

She ignored Chloe’s snickers, and focused instead on the teacher’s sigh.  “I asked if you could repeat what I’d just said,” she clarified, turning back to the board.  “I’d advise you to pay attention since, as I said earlier, everything in today’s class is likely to show up on next week’s midterm.”

She continued the lecture, and Marinette managed to ignore Alya’s notes and actually pay attention.

Until the door slammed open again.

“Paw-don me, Madame.  We’re looking for Marinette?”

Her head snapped up at the sound of her name, and she was greeted with the presence of not one, not two, but  _ five _ Chat Noirs that had gathered at the front of the classroom.  The Chat that had spoken was definitely the real one, and he sent her a wink as he caught her eye, and another one had a boom box.

“Oh no,” she whispered, eyes widening in horror as she sunk further behind her desk.

“Oh, yes,” Alya whispered back, looking far too excited for anything that could possibly come from this.  She grabbed Marinette’s arm, yanking her back up.  “She’s right here!”

“We’re the Chatstreet Boys,” the fake Chat with the boom box said, grinning at her as he set it down on Mme. Bustier’s desk.  “And this is for you, Purr-incess, from a special somebody.”

Marinette could feel everyone’s eyes on her, and the only thing keeping her from hiding in shame under the desk was Alya’s unrelenting hold on her arm.  Her friend was using the hand that wasn’t restraining her to record the events leading to her demise, as were every other classmate she could see.

And then fake-Chat hit a button on his boom box, and the first chords started.  Alya cackled as she recognized the song, and Marinette’s face reached previously uncharted levels of red.

“No,” she pleaded, staring straight at the real Chat.  But he just winked.

“ _ Ye-ah-ah _ ,” he sang, as if directly brushing off her protests.  The others had fallen into a line behind him, facing the chalkboard with their hands clasped behind their backs.  Real-Chat reached out for her as he started to sing, his grin far too smug.  “ _ You are my fire.  The one desire.  Believe when I say, I want it that way!” _

Did he really need to have a voice like an angel?  Wasn’t this already bad enough?

With another wink and a blown kiss in her direction, Chat stepped back as a fake-Chat took over vocals, joining the others as they spun to face the class, perfectly syncing himself up with them as they began sliding and snapping.

Because of course he’d fucking choreographed her death.  Obviously.  Honestly, she would have been disappointed if he hadn’t.

“ _ But we are two worlds apart.  Can’t reach to your heart when you say that I want it that way!” _

Real-Chat jumped forward again, his voice cracking as he hit the high note at the end of, “ _ Tell me why!” _

Kim whooped loudly, and Marinette wished the world would open up and swallow her already, as Chat and his boyband broke into moves she was certain were taken directly from a hundred Backstreet Boys videos. 

“ _ Ain’t nothin’ but a heartache.” _

_ “Tell me why!” _

_ “Ain’t nothin’ but a mistake.  Tell me why.  I never wanna hear you say, I want it that way!” _

She hoped it would end there, after the first chorus, but luck was clearly not on her side today, because a Fake-Chat started on the next verse, dancing his way up the aisle between desks and using his very plastic baton as a microphone.  Two of the others jumping onto Mme. Bustier’s desk, the fourth onto Chloe and Sabrina’s.  Real-Chat claimed Nino’s as his stage, directly in front of Marinette, not missing a beat of his dance as he winked down at her.

When no amount of tugging would get Alya to release her hold, Marinette settled for groaning and burying her face in her hands.  Everyone was video taping anyway.  If she decided for some ungodly reason that she wanted to see the parts of her demise that she’d missed, she’d have her choice of angles to watch it from.

Her three and a half minutes of pain went on for approximately three and a half centuries, and Marinette found herself peeking sometime around the second chorus.  Chat was surprisingly good at harmonizing, and she absently wondered if he’d had singing lessons before.  Maybe these weren’t some random people in Chat costumes he’d hired.  Maybe Chat was actually in a boyband.

At some point the Chats regrouped on the ground, dancing as flawless as ever.  As the music wound down, Real-Chat made his way up the aisle.

“ _ Cause I want it” _ —he gracefully fell to a knee in front of her, pulling a rose out of nowhere and holding it out in offering— _ “that way.” _

The class erupted in cheers, and Alya finally released her arm.  Not that it did Marinette any good, as the person she’d been trying to hide from was literally right in front of her.

He winked, wiggling the flower as if to remind her of its presence.  “For you, Purr-incess,” he whispered, his grin spread wide enough for Marinette to fear his cheeks may crack.

She was sure that if it was possible for her face to get any redder, it definitely did, but she reached out, tentatively grasping the stem, and offered him a small smile as she started to pull it from his fingers.

All she managed to do was allow him to change his grip, his hand moving to grasp her own instead, and Marinette couldn’t stop herself from shivering as his lips pressed against her knuckles.

And then he was gone, following his fellow Chatstreet Boys out of the classroom.

Marinette was still breathing heavily, her face on fire, when her classmates’ voices broke through. 

“What was that?”

“Marinette, who sent them?”

“One of them really looked like Chat Noir.”

Marinette blinked rapidly and opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Thankfully, however, she had Alya for that.

“Marinette’s been getting all these presents this week from a secret admirer,” she said, sending a leering grin to her friend.  “We haven’t figured out who they’re from yet.”

“That was so romantic,” Rose cooed.  “Marinette, you should date whoever sent them.  They seem really sweet.”

“Very sweet,” Alya echoed, elbowing her friend in the ribs.  “You should use that song for your first dance at your wedding.”

Marinette groaned loudly and finally slid under her desk to wallow in her shame in peace.

Chloe scoffed, flicking her hair over her shoulder.  “Clearly they got the name wrong,” she said, though no one was particularly listening to her.  “It’s obvious that they were here to sing for me.  Who would want to serenade Marinette Dupain-Cheng anyway?”

“Alright, class, that’s enough.”  Mme. Bustier had finally recovered from the shock of having her class—and desk—taken over by a superhero themed boy band, and was ready to move on with the lesson.  “Please return to your seats and put your phones away.  Where is Marinette?”

“Under the desk.”  Marinette scowled at her traitorous best friend.  She did not want to have to actually learn things now, not when there was a much preferable option of staying down here and trying to forget about the whole thing.

“Alright.”  Mme. Bustier nodded, and Marinette sighed in relief.  “Alya, please give her the notes after class.  Now, does anyone have any questions before we begin again?”

Most of the class was too busy typing away at their phones under their desks to have any questions, and Mme. Bustier’s phone sense wasn’t quite over the shock yet to catch them, but one hand did shoot up.

“Yes, Kim?”

“Is that going to be on the midterm, too?”

*********

By the time they were let out of class, the entire school had heard about it.  Everywhere Marinette went, the Chatstreet Boys were blaring from a dozen different phones.  She couldn’t take two steps without someone wanting to know who sent them.

Her only respite was in classes, where she steadfastly did not think about Chat Noir, or his stupid face, or the way his lips felt against her hand, or how nice his voice was, or how much she was going to kill him later that night for putting her through that.

And, while she was definitely not on that topic and one hundred percent totally paying attention to the maths lecture, hadn’t she specifically told him to be more subtle?  She was pretty sure those were the exact words she’d used.  Had he just decided to blatantly ignore her?  Or was his definition of “subtle” more along the lines of “be as unsubtle as you possibly can by having a bunch of people dress up as you and be your backup dancers”?  Apparently Chat needed to get a new dictionary, because that was definitely not its definition.

She sighed, as she’d been doing practically non-stop since he’d left, and traced over the lines on her paper.  Her notes consisted entirely of the word  _ MATHS _ , and her pen had been over the letters so many times that she’d be surprised if the ink hadn’t bled through onto the next page.

She was going to give him a piece of her mind when he came over that night.  Sure, she  _ had _ been the one to put  _ him _ under a love spell, but did that really give him permission to embarrass her in front of her entire class?  Thank god Adrien hadn’t been there.  She definitely would have burst into flames or some other horribly painful death if he had been.

But she wasn’t thinking about Adrien right now.  Nope.  She was thinking about maths.  And wondering if, after she’d told Chat how much she didn’t find his singing voice ridiculously attractive, maybe he might want to cuddle with her again.  Because that had been not horrible and she definitely wouldn’t mind.

She wasn’t thinking about Adrien until she’d finished dealing with her Chat problem.  And, when Chat wasn’t in love with her anymore, that was when she would assess whether she could handle pursuing and potentially dating Adrien while knowing he wasn’t her true love.

So she wasn’t thinking about him until Monday.  Not even a little bit.

The bell rang, startling her badly enough that her pen ripped a hole through her page of very detailed notes, and she sighed again.

Alya laughed, and Marinette quickly shoved her things into her backpack, steeling herself to survive lunch break.

“You know,” Alya said, leading her friend through the halls.  “Nino has never serenaded me.  Not even without backup dancers.”

Marinette groaned.  “Alya.”

“I’m just saying.”  She held up her hands in defence, though her smirk betrayed her false innocence.  “That was hardcore romantic, and I’m seriously thinking about ditching Nino for Chat.”

“No way,” Nino interjected, swinging an arm over his girlfriend’s shoulders.  “I already called dibs if Marinette doesn’t take him.  Get in line, babe.”

Marinette rolled her eyes.  “Could we please talk about something other than that?” she asked, feeling her face heating up again.  “Today has been humiliating enough.”

“Sure.”  Alya pulled her into her other side, her smirk growing.  “Do you think you could get him to do a strip show tomorrow?”

Marinette groaned loudly, pulling away from her grip.

“Do you actually have that power, DC?” Kim wondered, appearing at her other side with Max.  “Because, if you do, you should definitely use your power for good.”

“No!” Marinette threw her arms in the air, stalking off.

“Where are you going?” Alya called after her.

“To die!”

Her friends laughed, so Marinette flipped them off over her shoulder, the sound of the Chatstreet Boys mocking her from every phone she passed as she made her way outside.  She didn’t stop until she reached the tree where they usually ate lunch, and flopped down face first on the ground, so the grass could muffle her screams.

And that was where they found her a few minutes later, having stopped at their lockers to grab their lunches.

She heard them as the settled around her, and someone dropped a bag of what was presumably her own lunch onto the back of her head.  She stopped screaming, but didn’t look up from the grass until she was positive that their conversation was going to stay on their upcoming French midterm.  No one even glanced her way as she sat up, peeled off her backpack, and dug into her sandwich.

But she should have known they were only lulling her into a false sense of security.

“So, Marinette,” Rose said, leaning forward eagerly.  “Do you really have no idea who sent those dancers?”

Marinette groaned and face planted back into the grass.  “No, I don’t,” she mumbled, barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

“Well, let me know when you find out,” Kim said, patting her awkwardly on the back of the head.  “I have a feeling that’s gonna be a question on the midterm, and I need to get it right.”  Marinette turned her head enough to scowl at him.

“All evidence points to Marinette’s secret admirer being Chat Noir,” Max pointed out, and Marinette turned back into the grass to release a distressed wail.  “I mean, think about it.  He called her out of class yesterday to discuss a non-existent akuma, and one of the dancers today was definitely him.  And, if you need more proof, just look at the way he’s looking at her during the third chorus.  Chat Noir is definitely into Marinette, whether he’s her secret admirer or not.”

“As if,” Chloe scoffed, stepping out from behind the tree where she and Sabrina had definitely not been eavesdropping.  “Like Chat Noir would go for a loser like Marinette Dupain-Cheng.  Her secret admirer is probably someone lame,  _ if _ that performance was even for her at all.  I still think they got the name wrong and it was supposed to be for me.  Probably from my Adrikins, because he’s a romantic like that.”

Marinette was not in the mood to argue with Chloe, not right now and not about this of all things, and was content to become one with the grass until she had to return to class.

Alya, of course, did not get the memo, and Marinette tuned out their argument.  She found herself wishing that Chat would show up and whisk her away so that she didn’t have to deal with this anymore, but shook the idea off, reminding herself that this was all his fault in the first place.  Or her fault for the love spell?  No.  It was definitely Alya’s fault for making her think that drinking dried elephant shit was a good idea.  Yes, she was going to blame Alya.

But then a squeal interrupted the fight, one that could only have come from Rose.

“Look!” she shouted, wiggling in the grass and grabbing onto Juleka’s arm, staring up into the sky.  “Oh, this is so romantic!”

Someone messed up Marinette’s hair, laughing.  “Your secret admirer is seriously lame,” Alix told her.  “They are the ultimate dork.”

Marinette ignored her friend, vaguely wondering what everyone was looking at but not curious enough to actually look up from the grass.

Alya glanced down to see how her friend was taking this, and rolled her eyes.  “Marinette, girl.  You need to look.”

Marinette gave in, sitting back on her knees and following her friends’ gazes to the sky.  There was a plane, she noted, that was flying fairly low.

And then she noticed the banner flying behind it.

_ Marinette, _ it read,  _ you shine brighter than the sun, and I love you more than the heavens themselves. _

The teasing remarks of her friends faded away as she stared at the banner, a small smile sneaking its way onto her face, and her heart began to race in her chest.  Alix was wrong.  Chat wasn’t lame, or a dork.  This was really sweet.

Wait, what?

She shook her head, willing herself to snap out of...whatever this was.  This wasn’t sweet.  She definitely wasn’t touched by how much effort it must have taken to make this work.  What was she thinking?

A flash of movement caught her eye, and she glanced across the street.  Of course Chat was lurking nearby to see if she saw it.  She smiled fondly at him, offering an awkward wave.  He grinned back and blew her a kiss before disappearing.

Unfortunately, the exchange did not go unnoticed.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” Chloe spat, moving to scowl down at her, hands planted on her hips.  “Do you actually expect me to believe that Chat Noir is in love with you?  What, did you start that rumour that he sent those dancers this morning too?  Are you really claiming he’s your secret admirer?  Him, a superhero, in love with  _ you? _ ”

Marinette took a heavy breath and glanced back at the banner, determined to ignore Chloe.  Who did she think she was, anyway?  Marinette had never claimed that Chat Noir was in love with her—to Chloe, at least.  All she’d done was wave at him.   _ He _ was the one who’d blown her a kiss.  If Chloe should be blaming anyone for making her think Chat Noir could be in love with Marinette, it should be him.

Not that she was going to say any of that to Chloe.  Nope.  She was going to be the bigger person today, and watch that stupidly sweet banner pass through the sky until it disappeared, and then she was going to go back to class and hope that Chat Noir didn’t have any more surprises up his sleeves so she could get through the rest of the day in peace.

But Chloe didn’t seem to agree with her peacekeeping tactics, and loudly scoffed, maneuvering herself into Marinette’s space.  

“Please.  Are you really such a loser that you can’t even defend yourself?”  She rolled her eyes.  “Stop kidding yourself, Marinette.  No one would ever be in love with you, least of all an actual superhero.  This—”  She paused, gesturing up at the plane.  “—isn’t for you.  Those dancers definitely weren’t for you.  And Chat Noir is not in love with you.”  Marinette dug her nails into her fists, teeth clenched hard enough that she was probably going to have a headache later, and listed all the reasons punching Chloe in the face would be a bad idea.  The other girl scoffed again, glancing away to inspect her nails.  “Of course, if that loser superhero would be in love with anyone, it would only make sense for it to be someone as lame as you.”

She tried.  She really, really tried not to say anything.  It was one thing for Chloe to insult her.  But to insult Chat Noir?  She wasn’t going to stand for that.

“You know what?” she said, tearing her eyes from the plane that was getting further and further away and focusing her glare on Chloe’s face.  “Screw you, Chloe.”  The other girl gasped, a scandalized hand rising to clutch at her chest.  “Anyone would be lucky to have Chat Noir be in love with them.   He’s brave and smart and kind and funny, and I’m not saying he’s my secret admirer, because it’s a  _ secret _ admirer so I don’t know who they are, but if he was, I’d be the luckiest girl in Paris, okay?  Because Chat Noir is honestly the sweetest guy I’ve ever met.  He’s absolutely amazing, and you have no idea what you’re talking about, okay?  So just don’t.”

Marinette was breathing heavily when she finished her rant, and the sudden silence was deafening.  Chloe was staring at her with wide eyes, and Marinette realized her finger was pressed into her collarbone with more force than was necessary.  She retracted her hand and took a step back, eyes darting to the others gathered around them, all of whom were staring at her in various stages of the same shock Chloe had been.  Her eyes caught on the phone in Alya’s hand.

The words that’d fallen from her lips came back, as well as the implication they could have regarding her feelings, and suddenly she felt like she was going to throw up.  Which she was definitely not going to do here, where any projectile would definitely land on Chloe’s shoes and start another argument she really didn’t want to get into.

So she turned and bolted, sprinting back inside the school.

Alya found her a couple minutes later, huddled on the floor of that one bathroom that no one ever used, arms wrapped around her knees.

She’d already been ignoring Tikki’s placations, so it wasn’t much of an adjustment to ignore her best friend as she sunk to the floor beside her with a sigh.  They sat there for a few minutes before Alya finally spoke.

“You like him.”

Marinette shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the spot of graffiti she’d been staring at.  “No, I don’t.”

Alya sighed heavily, reaching across the small distance between them to lay a hand on her friend’s arm.  “Marinette—”

“I don’t, okay?”  She snapped her gaze to Alya, eyes pleading.  “I don’t have any feelings for Chat Noir.  I  _ can’t _ , and I don’t, so can you please drop it?”

Alya stared at her for a long moment before sighing again.  “Alright,” she conceded.  “I’ll drop it.  But no one else is going to.  You know what that looked like, right?”

Marinette groaned, burying her face in her knees again.  “How bad do you think it’d be if I just went home?”

*********

Adrien fell into his computer chair, eyes scanning the list he’d made.  His father wasn’t very happy with how much he’d been skipping out on the photoshoot this week, but he just couldn’t help it.  Every moment he could spend with Marinette was more than worth any disapproval.

It was only six o’clock, and Marinette had been very adamant the night before that he not come before nine, so he had three hours to kill before he could see her again, and he’d already picked up everything for tonight’s present.

He looked back at the list, sighing.  He was running out of things to do for her.  The internet mostly had gross and creepy suggestions, and the ones that weren’t were nowhere near good enough for someone like Marinette.  Plagg was no help, not that he ever was, and refused to give any suggestions since he was already doing Adrien a big enough favour by letting him transform so often.

He wished he could text Nino.  Nino had successfully had a girlfriend for over two years, so he would have some suggestions, right?

“Why did Kim have to destroy Nino’s phone?” he asked, technically addressing Plagg but not expecting any actual answer.

“Can’t you just text one of your other friends?”

Adrien straightened up, staring at his kwami.

Plagg stared back warily.  “What?”

“You’re a genius, Plagg.”  Adrien spun away to find his phone.  Why hadn’t he thought of that?  He had other friends besides Nino who knew things about wooing people.  He should have texted one of them right away.  But that was love, wasn’t it?  It made you stupid.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you, kid,” Plagg reminded him, settling down on the desk.  “I think my genius deserves more cheese.”

Adrien didn’t answer, but opened the cheese drawer on his desk as he scrolled through his contacts.  Phoning would be better than texting in this situation, right?  He was on a time crunch after all.  Nine o’clock was going to come quickly, and he had to have at least one good idea for this weekend by then.

His fingers tapped impatiently on his desk as he waited for her to pick up.

_ “Adrikins!” _

“Hey, Chlo!” he greeted, spinning in his seat.  “How’s it going?”

_ “It’s much better now that you’ve called.” _

“That’s good.  Listen, I need advice.”  He paused, Chloe urging him to go on, and sighed wistfully.  “There’s this girl.”

_ “And you want my advice on how to get her to like you?  Because everyone loves me, so therefore I have the best advice?” _

That wasn’t exactly Adrien’s thought process, but he chose not to argue.  “Yeah.”

Chloe made a noise of agreement.   _ “Alright.  What’s her name?  I need to know if she’s good enough for you before I help.” _

Adrien sighed again.  “Marinette.”  He loved the way her name sounded.  Could he just say it forever?  He glanced at the clock.  It was still far too long before he’d be able to see her again.

Chloe was silent for a long moment, but Adrien was too busy imagining how Marinette’s lips would feel against his to notice.

_ “Marinette _ ,” she repeated,  _ “Dupain-Cheng?” _

“Yeah.”  Adrien knew he had what Plagg had dubbed That Stupid Love Face on, but he didn’t care.  Even the thought of Marinette made everything seem right.  God, she was really wonderful, wasn’t she?

He might not have been entirely present in his conversation, but he did manage to catch Chloe’s half-scream of annoyance.

_ “Are you shitting me, Adrien?  No, I’m not going to help you.  Oh my fucking Ladybug, why is everyone in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng?  What’s so special about her?  I’m _ — _ I can’t.  I’m just so done with today.  Call me when you stop being insane.” _

Adrien stared at his phone in confusion for a few long moments after Chloe hung up.  What was going on?  Why was Chloe so upset that he was in love with Marinette?  It didn’t make any sense.

His stomach dropped as her words sunk in.   _ Everybody _ was in love with Marinette?  Obviously that was an exaggeration—not that Adrien could understand why anyone would not be in love with Marinette, but he doubted that Chloe knew for a fact that everyone in the entire world was in love with her.  

But  _ someone else _ had to have been in love with Marinette for Chloe to know about it.   _ Someone else _ that had just as much a chance at wooing her as he did.   _ Someone else _ who could end up being the one she chose, the one she cuddled with while watching movies and kissed goodnight.

He had to know who they were.

He was dialing Alya’s number before he could even think, trying not to hyperventilate as he waited for her to pick up.

_ “Hey, Adrien!  What’s _ — _ ” _

“Chloe says someone’s in love with Marinette,” he blurted, not waiting for Alya to finish her greeting.

Alya actually had the audacity to laugh, ignorant to Adrien’s struggle.   _ “Oh yeah.  I guess you haven’t been around this week, huh?” _

“Who is it?” he pressed, his fingers gripping the fabric of his pants tightly.

_ “Okay, it’s gonna sound crazy, but I’m gonna send you a video to prove it as soon as I finish editing all the best footage together, okay?  So give me, like, an hour to get that done before you start being all skeptical, okay?” _

“Fine,” Adrien agreed.  “Who is it?”

_ “Chat Noir.” _

All his breath left him in relief.  It was him.  He was the one who was in love with Marinette.  That was okay.  That was more than okay, actually, because this meant he could gather the best information on where he was at with wooing Marinette in a completely inconspicuous way and not reveal his identity in the process.

“That’s cool,” he said, cringing as his voice cracked.  “And, uh, what’s Marinette thinking about all this?  Is she in love with him back?”

Alya was silent for long enough that Adrien had to check to make sure she hadn’t hung up on him.

_ “Okay,” _ she finally said.   _ “I’ll tell you, but only because you’re missing out on it with your photoshoot and because this is probably still going to be a thing when you get back.  But Marinette cannot find out I told you any of this, got it?” _


	6. I'll Make You Fall In Love

Marinette was not waiting for Chat Noir to show up.  She had definitely not been glancing at the clock since a little after five.  She hadn’t already picked out a movie, and hadn’t spent two hours agonizing over which pyjamas to wear.

“He’ll be here at nine,” Tikki had reminded her countless times.  “You told him not to show up any earlier than that.”

Marinette had groaned every time, and pointed out that she knew that, Tikki, she just thought she saw a bird on her balcony and that was the only reason she was staring at the skylight.

Tikki never seemed to believe her, but Tikki also hadn’t stopped her from drinking magical dried elephant shit, so Marinette wasn’t too keen to listen to Tikki’s opinion at the moment.

But now it was eight fifty two, and she was trying to concentrate on not screwing up this knitting project anymore than she already had.  No.  She wasn’t trying, she was.  Because she wasn’t thinking about how Chat would be there any minute and how they’d probably cuddle again.

“Marinette, it’s going to be fine,” Tikki said, when Marinette’s eyes drifted to the skylight again.  “It’ll just be like any other night, and nothing has to happen if you don’t want it to.”

“I know that,” Marinette grumbled, her gaze returning to the knitting she’d ruined yet again.  “And I don’t want anything to happen, so we’re just going to watch a movie and cuddle and eat snacks and that’s it.”

Tikki didn’t reply, and Marinette barely had a moment to wonder why before the knock came on her skylight.  Her heart definitely did not race, but she took a moment to calm herself before making her way up to the bed to let him in.

Chat fell through the skylight like he was meant to be there, dropping a dufflebag to the ground and keeping one hand behind his back.

Marinette eyed him suspiciously as she closed the window, and took her own seat across from him.

“Hi, Chat,” she said, cringing at how lame that was.

But he grinned at her and poked her on the nose with the hand that wasn’t hidden.  “Hello, Purr-incess,” he said.  “I missed you.”

“You saw me, like, twice today,” she pointed out, her face heating up as she tried to not think about either of the times she’d seen him.

“But I still missed you,” he insisted, squirming awkwardly.  He reached behind him with his free hand to adjust whatever he was holding.  “I brought you a present.”

Marinette sighed, offering him a smile.  “Do I have to close my eyes again?”

“Of course.”  Chat nodded, and she rolled her eyes before closing them, holding her hands out in front of her.

It took a few long moments of Chat maneuvering the gift to get it settled.  Whatever it was, it was soft and warm, and he kept his hands cupped around hers.

“You can open your eyes.”

Marinette stared down at her gift, wiggling around in their hands.

“You got me a kitten?” she whispered, glancing back up at him in awe before looking back down at the cat.

It was small.  Marinette didn’t know anything, really, about kittens, but she was pretty sure this one wasn’t too old.  It had midnight black fur, and the brightest blue eyes she’d ever seen, and a little bell tied around its neck with a pink ribbon.

Chat nodded, pushing their joined hands closer to Marinette so that the kitten rested against her chest.  “She’s had all her shots and everything,” he told her, reaching for the duffle bag.  “And I got you everything I could think of that you’d need.”

Marinette couldn’t look at him as he continued to ramble on about everything he’d got, choosing to stare at the kitten instead as she tried to push past the swell of affection in her throat to say anything.

This wasn’t fair.  Chat wasn’t supposed to bring her presents and kittens.  He wasn’t allowed to sound so excited as he told her why he chose this particular brand of cat food.  None of this was fair.

She tuned back into his rambles when his voice took on a distressed tone and he tried to take the kitten back.

“—didn’t even think, and you’re probably allergic and now you’re going to die and it’ll be my fault cause I—”

“Chat.”  Marinette tugged the kitten closer, and Chat paused.  She finally looked up at him, ignoring the pang in her heart at the way his ears were drooping.  “I’m not allergic to cats.”

He practically deflated in relief, and Marinette probably would have laughed if she hadn’t been so tense herself.

“So,” he asked, reaching out a finger to stroke the kitten’s head.  “Do you like her?”

Marinette nodded quickly.  “I do,” she said, turning her gaze back to the kitten.  “I love her.  But I probably can’t keep her.”  She felt Chat’s eyes snap up to her face.  “We can’t have pets in the bakery.  It’s a health code thing.”  She looked back up, and offered him a small smile.  “I’ll ask in the morning, but it’s pretty likely that I’ll have to give her up.”

Chat blinked at her for a long moment, too many emotions flitting across his face for her to pin down what he was thinking.

And then he sighed, sinking in on himself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, eyes trained on her comforter while his claws picked at a loose thread.  “I didn’t even think about that.”

Marinette shuffled the kitten into one hand, reaching out to cover his own with the other.  “It’s okay,” she told him.  “It was really sweet of you, and I’m sure I can find someone who wants a kitten if my parents won’t let me keep her.”

Chat perked up at that, his hand turning over to grip hers tightly.  “I will,” he said, his eyes finding hers as a tentative smile stretched across his face.  “If you can’t keep her, I will.  I can bring her for visits so she still gets to know you, and, when you’re ready to move out, she’ll be waiting to move in with you.”

This was crazy, right?  Co-parenting a kitten with Chat Noir?  She should say no.  She should call off this whole thing before she did something she’d regret.

But she found herself smiling back.  “Okay,” she said, and Chat’s grin grew.

“So,” he said, his eyes darting down to the kitten.  “What’re you gonna name her?”

A name.  Right.  Because she couldn’t just refer to her as The Kitten for her entire life.

“Emma,” she blurted, and immediately wished she hadn’t.  She felt her face heat up, and stared down at the kitten to avoid Chat’s gaze.  Why did she say that?  Out of all the possible names she could have said, why did she have to pick that one?

“Emma,” he repeated, oblivious to her internal struggle, reaching out to stroke the kitten’s back.  “I like it.”

It didn’t take long for Emma to grow bored of them and fall asleep, and Chat held her as Marinette searched her room for a box big enough to keep her from escaping during the night.  Once Emma was tucked in with her fuzzy pink blanket and the stuffed octopus that was twice as big as her, Marinette and Chat settled in with the movie she’d picked earlier.

“Chat,” she said, as the opening credits started.  She turned to find him already looking at her, and leveled him with a look.  “First off, don’t get me wrong here.  Emma is adorable and I already love her, and the dance was…”  She trailed off, feeling her face heat up as she remembered that morning, searching for the best way to describe her feelings towards it.  “It was, um, wow.  And the plane was really sweet, and everything else has been too.  But you can’t keep doing this.”  He opened his mouth to argue, and she pressed a finger to his lips to keep him quiet.  “It’s too much, Chat, and people at school are getting suspicious.  Alya and Nino will keep it quiet, yeah, but not everyone will.  If word gets to Hawkmoth…”

“It’ll be bad,” he finished from behind her finger.  He pressed a kiss against it before moving it out of the way.

“Yeah,” she agreed, trying not to focus on the fact that he hadn’t let go of her hand.  “So I need you to promise me that anything you do tomorrow will be lowkey.  No more buying me expensive presents or showing up at my school, okay?”

Chat stared at her for a long moment before sighing.  “Alright,” he conceded.  “I promise I won’t do anything over the top tomorrow.”  He offered her a wry grin.  “My father’s getting pretty annoyed with me for skipping out on work all week anyway.  I should probably try to not disappear for hours tomorrow.”

Marinette smiled, and settled back into his side, trying not to wonder yet again what kind of job Chat had.  “Thank you,” she said, turning her gaze to the movie.

*********

She was starting to drift off when she felt his gaze on her, as it had been for the better part of the movie.  Honestly, it was so distracting that she only knew what was happening on screen because she’d seen the movie before.

She’d managed to ignore it for a couple hours, but now she was half asleep, and his arms were so warm and comfortable around her, and confronting him about it didn’t seem like that bad a plan.

So she turned her head, meeting his bright green eyes.

“What?” she asked, raising a sleepy brow.

Chat’s grin was soft, and it stole her breath.  “You’re cute,” he whispered, and she told herself that she was only blushing because of his bluntness as she dropped her gaze.  He reached out, gently cupping her cheek and tilting her face back up.  Her eyes met his and her heart jumped.  “You know how amazing you are, right?”

She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, and he brushed his thumb across her lip.  A shiver ran down her spine as his gaze dropped to it.

“Chat,” she said, unable to bring herself to care how breathless she sounded, then paused.  Where was she going with that sentence?

But he didn’t give her a chance to continue.

“Marinette,” he whispered, his tongue darting out to sweep across his lips.  He grew closer and closer, and her eyes drifted shut.  She could feel his breath against her lips, his nose bumping into hers, and—

—and she jumped away, her eyes snapping open and her chest heaving as she looked anywhere but at him.

It took a few moments for her to gain control of herself enough to speak, her voice a breathless whisper at that.

“I think you should go.”

Chat shuffled in her peripheral vision, and she didn’t protest when he pulled one of her hands to his lips.

“I probably should,” he agreed.  “I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

He was giving her an out, and she should take it, god should she take it.  But she found herself nodding instead.

“Could you drop by in the morning?” she asked.  “Before I head to school?  In case you need to take Emma?”

“Of course,” Chat said.  “Goodnight, Princess.”

And with that, he was gone.

Marinette stared at the comforter for a while longer, before turning off the movie and setting her tablet aside.  She made her way to her desk to grab her phone, taking a moment to check in on a sleeping Tikki in her hidden bed, and on Emma in her non-hidden bed, and curled back under her blankets before dialling Alya.

 _“You realize it’s the middle of the night, right?”_ her friend greeted, not sounding like she was anywhere near being asleep.   _“You could have woken me up.”_

“I’m kind of freaking out,” Marinette said, her voice far too steady for the emotions that were swirling inside her.  “Actually, I think I might be in shock.”

_“What?  Marinette, what’s going on?”_

Marinette took a deep breath.  “Alya, I think I might possibly maybe be a little bit into Chat Noir,” she whispered, closing her eyes tight against the words.  “Romantically.  Ish.”

Alya was silent for a long moment, before deadpanning, _“No shit, Sherlock.”_

Marinette groaned, hiding her face in the blanket.  “Alya _!”_

Alya sighed heavily.   _“Fine.  I’ll play along.  Oh, no.  How did this happen when literally nobody saw this coming at all?”_

“Can you not be sarcastic for like two seconds?” Marinette hissed.  “Please?  I’m having a crisis.”

Alya sighed again, but it was softer.   _“Okay, honey.  Why do you think you might like Chat Noir romantically.”_

Marinette bit her lip, the memory of Chat being so close rising up without her permission.  “He almost kissed me.”

There was a shriek on Alya’s end, and a small crash.   _“What?”_

Marinette squeezed her eyes tighter, her voice barely a whisper.  “And I almost let him.”

 _“What?”_ Alya squawked, louder than what was probably acceptable in the middle of the night when the rest of her family was definitely asleep.   _“Marinette!”_

Marinette groaned, frustration rising up.  At herself, for feeling this way.  At Alya, for finding that stupid love spell in the first place.  At Chat, for being so damn sweet and handsome and for having such soft looking lips.

“And I wanted him to and then he almost did but then all I could think about was how wrong this was because of the spell but I really, really wanted him to and I don’t know what to do.”  Marinette cut off her ramble with another groan, flipping over so she could bury her face in her pillow, hoping that Alya would have some magical advice that would stop her from feeling this way.

 _“Oh, girl,”_ Alya said.  Marinette could tell she was trying to be sympathetic, but a hint of her amusement snuck into her tone.   _“You got it bad.”_

*********

Adrien dropped his transformation as he came through his bedroom window, sliding down the wall with a dopey grin on his face.

Alya was convinced that Marinette at the very least had a crush on Chat Noir but was still in denial about it, and she definitely seemed to be right.

He’d taken a chance, trying to kiss her tonight.  If Alya had been wrong, it could have gone horribly.  And, yeah, she had turned him down and made him leave, but she almost hadn’t.  They’d been so close, and he could see that she’d wanted it almost as much as he did.

So he was still counting tonight as a win, even though she’d stopped their kiss before it actually happened.

She liked him.  She actually really liked him in a non-friend way.

This was the best day of his life.

Adrien realized he was giggling, but couldn’t find it in him to stop himself.  Plagg kicked him in the forehead.

“Shouldn’t you be cancelling things?” he asked, and Adrien tilted his head in question.  The kwami rolled his eyes.  “I can think of at least five things you have planned for tomorrow that are definitely not lowkey, and I don’t think ignoring her wishes is going to get her to actually kiss you.”

Adrien had to admit that Plagg had a point, but the grin didn’t fall from his face as he moved to start sending cancellation emails.  He was going to lose a lot of money on deposits, but Marinette was worth it.

But what could he plan for tomorrow that was lowkey?


	7. If You're Lookin' for Mr. Right

“No.”

Marinette pouted, holding Emma close to her face in an attempt to cute her mother into changing her mind.  “But Maman—”

“Marinette, no.”  Sabine folded her arms across her chest.  “You know we can’t have pets.  Where did you even get it?”

Marinette shrugged, dropping onto a stool and letting her kitten play in her lap.  “Chat Noir dropped her off last night,” she said, having decided to stick as close to the truth as possible.  “He said he found her, and that she was all alone out in the cold.”

Sabine seemed shocked by the fact that a superhero was apparently giving baby animals to random teenage girls, but it did little to change her stance on the subject of keeping it.  “Are you able to give it back to him?  Or do we have to take it to a shelter?  Don’t look at me like that, Marinette.  You know we can’t keep it.”

Marinette turned her gaze down on her kitten, rubbing a thumb between her ears.  “I know,” she said.  “I can get her back to him.”

Sabine nodded.  “I’m sorry, honey.”

“I know.”  Marinette cuddled Emma back against her chest and stood, starting across the kitchen for the stairs.

“What did your mom say?” Tikki wondered as soon as the door had closed behind her.

“She said no.”  Marinette sighed as she placed Emma back in her box-bed.  She started moving around her room, collecting which few of her things she’d taken out of Chat’s duffle bag.  “I mean, I knew she would, but…”

“But you still hoped.”  Tikki offered an understanding smile before flitting up to land on her chosen’s shoulder.  Marinette nodded, grateful for her kwami’s understanding, and sighed. 

“I’m gonna miss you, Emma,” she whispered as she passed the box-bed, leaning down to brush her fingers against her head. Emma let out a mew, curling back into the blankets. “Don’t give Chat Noir too much trouble, okay?”

“Speaking of,” Tikki muttered, her weight disappearing from Marinette’s shoulder before she could even register the words. 

A knock came on her skylight a moment later, and Marinette felt her heart leap to her throat. Has she brushed her hair yet? Or her teeth? Was he going to try to kiss her again? She didn’t think she had the willpower to resist him again, even if it was for his own good. God, what if he tried to kiss her and she still had morning breath? That would definitely break the spell, and then he’d never want to see her again and—

A second, more hesitant knock jerked her out of her panic, and she forced herself to take a deep breath and move to let him in, discretely checking her breath in her hand on the way and confirming that she had, in fact, brushed her teeth. 

He dropped in with a grin when she opened the door, collapsing on her bed and looking too much like he belonged there. Marinette had the inexplicable urge to curl into his side and just cuddle the day away. 

She shook her head, pushing the thought away, and started back to the main floor. 

“Maman says I can’t keep her,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and avoiding his gaze as he followed her down. “Sorry. I really do love her.”

His fingers gently gripped her chin, tilting her face up, and Marinette jumped as she realized how close he was.

“Don’t worry about it, Princess,” Chat said, offering her a smile and releasing her face. “I should have asked before buying you a pet out of nowhere. But I just saw her and thought she was perfect and I couldn’t just leave her.”

Marinette smiled back. “You’re sure you can keep her?” she confirmed, sighing with relief when Chat nodded. 

They stood there for a few more minutes, not saying anything and just smiling at each other like idiots, before Chat took a step back. 

“I should get going,” he said. “I have to be at work soon. I’ll see you tonight?”

Marinette hummed in confirmation, helping him shove the last few cat things into the duffle bag. She picked up Emma, bringing her close to her face and pressing a kiss into her nose before tucking her against Chat’s chest.

He adjusted the duffle bag on his shoulder and offered her a smile. 

Her eyes found their way to his lips, and she wondered why he hadn’t tried to kiss her. He should have, right? He’d wanted to last night, so his feelings on the matter shouldn’t have changed so quickly. All evidence suggested that he should try to kiss her goodbye. 

So why wasn’t he?

It wasn’t until his lips were moving to form words she wasn’t hearing that she realized she was still staring at them, and she snapped her gaze back up to his. 

“What?”

“I was just wishing you a good day,” he said, the self-satisfied smirk on his face obliterating any hope she’d had that he hadn’t noticed her staring.

She nodded quickly, ignoring the blush that was spreading across her face. “You too,” she told him. “Bye, Emma. Bye, Chat. See you tonight.”

She started to turn away, to busy herself with something and pretend she wasn’t aching to kiss Chat Noir, but he caught her hand, tugging her closer to him. 

“Until tonight,” he said, pressing his lips against her knuckles in a lingering kiss. She couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through her.

He pulled back after a moment, and adjusted his hold on their kitten before disappearing back out onto the roof, leaving Marinette to stare after him and try to calm her racing heart. 

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, staring at nothing, her hand raised so her own lips pressed against the spot where his had been moments ago, but Tikki eventually broke her out of her trance by flying into her face. 

“Didn’t you tell Alya you’d be early to school?”

Marinette jumped, and quickly raced around her room to gather her things for school and was out the door in barely a few minutes. 

*********

“And you’re telling me this came as a surprise to you?”

Marinette scowled at Nino and the disbelief on his stupid face.

“Yes, having teeny tiny possibly romantic feelings for Chat Noir came as a surprise to me, Nino,” she snapped, turning her scowl on Alya as she started giggling. “This isn’t funny! I almost kissed him last night, and I was disappointed that he didn’t try to kiss me this morning. What am I supposed to do tonight? Or if he shows up randomly during the day again?”

“Actually kiss him,” Alya suggested, shrugging as if it was the easiest decision in the world. 

“Alya,” Marinette snapped. “Can you try to be helpful?”

“Wait, you saw him this morning already?” Nino raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why?”

Marinette shrugged, feeling her face heat up as she stared at a very interesting stick in the grass. “He bought me a kitten last night and I couldn’t keep it because of the bakery so he took her back this morning to keep her until I got my own place?”

She could feel her friends staring at her. 

“He bought you a kitten?” Alya repeated, and Marinette nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me about this when you phoned last night?”

“Because freaking out about wanting to kiss him was more important,” Marinette pointed out, not looking up from the stick. Why did she have to bring this up? She was going to die of embarrassment when she very easily could have kept this whole thing to herself.

“Well, I’m going to have to see pictures now, then.” Alya thrust a hand into her face and Marinette sighed, pulling out her phone to find the selfies they’d taken with Emma the night before.

“Mari, dude.” She risked a glance up only for the smug looks on her friend’s faces to force her gaze back to the stick. “A black kitten with blue eyes? You realize this thing is basically your love child, right?”

Marinette groaned and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. Why was this her life? Why couldn’t she just time travel back to Sunday and knock the elephant shit out of her hands?

“You gave her a name, right?” Alya asked, in an attempt to steer the conversation into less embarrassing waters, though Marinette’s answering groan made her think her tactics weren’t working too well. “What’d you name her?”

Marinette sighed, and could feel her face pulsing from how much she was blushing. “Emma.”

There was a beat of silence before Alya burst into hysterical cackles, and she had to grip Nino’s arm tightly to keep from falling over. Marinette basked in her shame, knowing she deserved this for not thinking things through the night before. 

“What?” Nino asked, glancing between the two of them in confusion. “What’s so funny about the name Emma? I like it.”

“It’s,” Alya broke off, trying to take enough of a breath to speak between her laughter. It took a few minutes but she finally managed, “It’s one of the names she picked out for her and Adrien’s kids.”

Marinette groaned again, collapsing onto the ground, and Nino laughter joined Alya’s. why did her friend’s hate her? Could they not feel sorry for her for just a minute?

When their laughter finally died down, her friends were slightly more helpful. 

“Alright,” Alya said, sitting primly in front of her friend. “First of all, you’re in deep if you’re naming your love-cat after your hypothetical future children. Like, honestly, I think you might be in love with him. Second of all, we need a plan on how you’re going to handle this.”

Marinette sent them a pleading look. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Are you going to act on your feelings?” Nino asked. “Because either you’re going to have to ignore them until Monday comes around and you can see if he’s still in love with you without the spell, or—”

“Or you’re going to have the best weekend of your life hooking up with an actual superhero,” Alya cut in, offering her friend a sharp grin. “If I were you, I’d go with Plan B. Superhero sex is probably ridiculously hot.” Nino nodded in agreement, and Marinette groaned. 

“I’m not having sex with him,” she insisted. “And I’m not going to kiss him, because he’s not really in love with me. It’s just the stupid spell, and I have to get over it, so just tell me how to do that.”

Her friends exchanged a look, and Alya sighed. 

“Okay, babe,” she said, reaching over to pat Marinette’s knee in comfort. “We’ll help. But just keep in mind that no one would blame you for just giving into your feelings, okay?”

“Chat would,” Marinette pointed out, but settled in to listen to her friends’ advice on how to ignore her feelings. 

She was jumpy the whole day, and it took until lunchtime for her to figure out why, when Kim came over to compliment Alya’s video editing skills on the Chatstreet Boys video she’d uploaded to the Ladyblog the night before. 

She was waiting for him. Every time the door opened, she expected him to appear with an over the top  declaration of love. Every time someone moved past her too quickly, she was expecting them to be running towards whatever spectacle he’d prepared for her. Every time someone’s phone played the music video too loudly, or some video of one of their interviews, she expected him to be there when she turned around. 

And, as much as she didn’t want him to show up at school again today, she was disappointed every time it wasn’t him.

The final bell rang eventually, and he hadn’t made a single appearance. And she couldn’t deny how much she’d missed him.

*********

Adrien offered the assistant a smile as he accepted a water bottle, quickly unscrewing the lid and chugging it down. 

Oh, how he wished he could just sneak away again to see Marinette. He’d seen the way she’d stared at his lips that morning before he left, had watched her tongue dart out and drag along her own before she shook herself off. He couldn’t get the wanting look in her eyes out of his head. 

He was close. He was so close to proving his love was real; to getting her to return it. He hoped his plans for tonight would be enough, but he knew tomorrow’s would be if she needed a bit more proof. 

Someone came by and dabbed at his forehead, someone else touching up his makeup as yet another person fixed his hair. His father was near, laying into him again for missing so much of the photo shoot this week.

He knew he should stay today, try to catch up on the schedule after being the one to put them behind. The faster they got everything they needed, the faster he could get to Marinette. And she had told him herself to be less conspicuous and not visit her at school today. 

The photographer yelled something and the people hovering around him disbanded. He sighed and took a last sip of water before heading back to the set.

Someone adjusted his scarf as he was directed onto a chaise. 

“We’re going for longing here,” the photographer told him. “You’re being kept from the love of your life, and you’d give anything to be with them.”

Adrien had to keep himself from laughing, and went back to daydreaming about his nights with Marinette. 

*********

“What about this one?”

Marinette twirled in front of her computer, her hands smoothing down the fabric of her skirt. 

_ “It looks great,”  _ Alya said through the screen, rolling her eyes.  _ “Just like the last eighteen outfits you’ve tried on.” _

Marinette took a shaky breath, running a hand through her hair. 

“But do you think he’ll like it?” she prodded, scrutinizing her appearance in the mirror. “What if he hates it?”

_ “I really don’t think Chat Noir cares this much about what you’re wearing,”  _ Alya pointed out.  _ “Honestly, I think he’d be more than fine if he showed up and you weren’t even wearing any clothes at all.” _

“Alya!” Marinette flushes, turning to scowl at her friend.

_ “Sorry.”  _ Alya held her hands up in apology, though the effect was muted by her shit-eating grin.  _ “You’re overthinking this, girl. Chat is going to love you no matter what you’re wearing, and you’re going to have a fantastic time on your date tonight.” _

Marinette sighed and dropped into her desk chair, burying her face in her arms. “I’m freaking out, Alya,” she confessed. “I have actual feelings for him now, and he’s only around because of the spell. I could barely stop myself from giving into him when I didn’t have feelings for him. What am I supposed to do if he tries to kiss me again?”

_ “Actually kiss him this time?”  _  Marinette lifted her head enough to pout through the screen at her friend, and Alya sighed. “ _ Look, you know I’m all for you just giving in to your feelings and having a fling with Chat fucking Noir. But, if you’re not comfortable with that, just keep your distance. I know you, Marinette, and you can do anything you set your mind to. Keeping yourself from kissing Chat Noir tonight should be easy. And, if you feel like you can’t do it anymore, just tell him you’re tired and want to go to sleep. He’ll understand.” _

Marinette nodded to herself. Alya was right. She could do anything. She was Ladybug, for crying out loud, and Ladybug had managed to avoid Chat’s advances for years. One night was nothing.

“I can do this,” she whispered, making eye contact with Alya. “I can do this.”

A knock came from above and she squealed in shock, falling out of her chair. 

“He’s here,” she hissed as she righted herself, eyes flying wide in panic. “Do I look okay?”

_ “You look amazing,”  _ Alya told her, offering a gentle smile. “ _ You’re going to be fine, babe. Good luck.” _

Alya signed off of their Skype call, and Marinette took a deep breath. 

“It’s open,” she called, turning to fiddle with her hair a bit more as she listened to him enter. 

It was a few long moments of silence before she realized he hadn’t said anything. The mirror was at the wrong angle for her to see him, so she turned around, squinting at him in confusion. “What?”

He was just standing there, staring at her, his mouth hanging slightly open. He blinked at her words, closing his mouth. She definitely did not watch the way his tongue wet his lips before they pulled into a small smile, and her eyes darted back up to his before he spoke. 

“You look beautiful,” he whispered, his eyes sparkling with admiration, and Marinette found herself blushing. She was proud of this outfit. She’d made the skirt and blouse herself, as well as a matching jacket. And she might have spent a little too much time on her hair. But to hear him actually say it, while looking at her like she was the most precious thing on the planet? It was too much. 

“Thanks,” she whispered back, dropping her gaze from his eyes before she did something stupid.

That was when she noticed he was holding something. It looked like a book, with a large pink ribbon wrapped around it and tied into a sloppy bow. 

“What’s that?”

Chat blinked, his gaze dropping to the present as if he’d just remembered he had it.

“It’s for you,” he said, holding it out to her. “I’m sorry it’s messy. I didn’t have time to get it wrapped.”

Marinette took the book into her hands, ignoring the way her lips tilted up without her permission. He was cute, she couldn’t deny it anymore. The way he was embarrassed about this awkward bow was adorable, and there was nothing she could do about it. 

The book, she realized as she carefully pulled off the ribbon, was a photo album. The cover was pink, and little black paw prints dotted it. It was cute, but she didn’t have the faintest idea as to why he’d give it to her.

“Open it,” he urged, and she glanced up at him briefly before doing so. 

She gasped, drawing her fingers across the pictures tucked inside. There was Emma, nestled in her blanket on what was clearly Chat’s bed. And there she was pouncing on a stuffed mouse. And curled up on a green shirt, a hand cupping her to the chest that was definitely untransformed Chat’s, and a sliver of a smile in the top corner. And that was him suited up, cupping her to his cheek as he took a selfie with her in what was definitely his bathroom mirror, if the blue shower curtain behind him was any indication. 

There were more, about two dozen or so pictures of him and their kitten, and Marinette felt her heart melt as she flipped through them. 

“I figured you’d want to see her,” Chat was saying. “I’ll keep bringing you them, whenever I get a good one, and you can fill it up and watch her grow until you’ve got your own place and can have her with you again.”

Marinette ran her fingers over the last picture, one of him from the chest up without the suit, the side of his face pressed against his mattress as Emma climbed on his head, her body blocking as much as the mask did. His smile shone out from the picture, giddy and pure even with their kitten stepping on his nose. 

She closed the book and cradled it against her chest, feeling a lump growing in her throat. Her eyes darted back to his face, to the nervous anticipation scrawled over it, and she felt her resolve to keep tonight platonic crumble even more than it already had.

She squashed the urge to kiss him, and closed the distance between them to wrap her arms around him in a hug, burying her face in his chest.

“Thank you,” she whispered against him, her heart skipping a beat as his arms found their way around her and pulled her closer. “Your dad was okay with you getting a cat then?”

She felt him shrug. “He doesn’t know yet,” he confessed. “My, um, I guess my nanny, for lack of a better word, she knows, though, and she’s promised to keep Emma a secret from him as long as I take care of her and keep her in my room.”

Marinette chose not to comment on the fact that Chat still had a nanny. She’d teased him more than enough about it when he’d mentioned her to Ladybug, and she didn’t want to ruin whatever this moment was by mocking him. And, besides, it wasn’t like he was the only person their age that she knew who still had a nanny. Adrien might deny it whenever they called her as such, but Nathalie was definitely his nanny. And Chloe definitely had a nanny, even if she referred to him as a butler. Maybe having nannies was just a rich, blond person thing. 

So instead of mocking him, she let herself enjoy his embrace for as long as it might last. 

Which, unfortunately, wasn’t much longer. 

He pulled back enough to offer her a grin. “Are you ready to go?”

Marinette blinked at him. “Go where?”


	8. Fallin' in Love

Marinette wasn’t sure how Chat had managed to talk her into climbing onto his back so he could take her to his surprise. Actually, she was pretty sure it had to do with the fact that, before she could even think of protesting, he’d looked at her with that adoring smile of his and she’d melted. 

Which was why she was now clinging to him as they flew across the rooftops, trying not to think about the feel of him pressed so close to her. 

Her plan to keep things platonic was already looking to be more difficult than she’d thought. 

Nope. She shook her head, hitting it a couple of times against Chat’s back to make her point. She was not going to kiss him tonight. They’d do whatever it was they were going to do, and then she was going to go home and go to bed and pretend to be too sick to talk to him again until Monday. Tonight was going to be completely platonic. It didn’t matter how sweet or cute he was, or how nice his face looked, she wasn’t going to change her mind. 

She squeaked in surprise as Chat skidded to a halt, her arms tightening around his neck.

“Are we here?” She pulled her face away from his back, glancing around at the nondescript rooftop they were on.

“No,” Chat said. “But we’re getting close. Close your eyes.”

Marinette let out a huff. “Why do I always have to close my eyes?”

Chat laughed. “Because it’s a surprise,” he pointed out. “I’m not moving until they’re closed. I can stand here all night if I have to.”

“Fine.” Marinette closed her eyes and buried her face in his back again. “They’re closed.”

“Good.”

And then he was off, bounding across rooftops for a few more minutes before stopping again. 

Marinette resisted the urge to peak as he crouched to let her off his back. She didn’t look as he took her hands in his and lead her forward a few steps. 

“Okay,” he said, after what felt like an eternity. “You can open them.”

Marinette complied, and found herself in the middle of the most gorgeous rooftop garden she’d ever laid her eyes on. 

Vines and flowers arched overhead, covering the walls and weeping from baskets. Fairy lights twinkled above like stars. There was barely enough room to walk between the plants, but a space in the centre was cleared enough for a small table and two chairs. A white cloth had been spread over the table, an array of snacks spread on top. 

It was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen, and Marinette found herself tearing up. 

“So?” Chat asked, and her eyes darted over to him. He shifted nervously. “What do you think? Lowkey enough?”

Marinette nodded. “This is amazing,” she told him, her voice an awed whisper.

The smile that spread across his face made her heart jump to her throat, and she swallowed heavily and looked away. 

This wasn’t fair. Who gave him permission to be so charming and romantic and just so...so  _ him _ when she couldn’t do anything about it?

_ This isn’t real _ , she reminded herself.  _ He’s not really in love with you, and it’s all going to be over on Monday morning. If you don’t keep tonight platonic, you’re just going to end up hurt.  _

“Okay,” she said, voice falsely cheery as she turned back to Chat with a too-big smile. “We should get started on whatever you’ve planned, right?”

Chat blinked at her, his eyebrows scrunching up in confusion. “Right,” he agreed, leading her towards the table. 

“Princess.” He pulled out a chair, and Marinette blushed as she took it, quietly thanking him as he moved to take his own seat. 

“So,” he said, gesturing at the table. “I’ve got all kinds of snacks, and I thought we could just talk?”

Marinette nodded and picked up an eclair so she wouldn’t have to say anything too quickly. His hair seemed to sparkle from the fairy lights behind him, and it was highly distracting. 

He cleared his throat. “So,” he repeated, drawing out the word. “How was your day?”

Marinette snorted around her bite of eclair at how deceptively mundane that sounded. Here she was, having a romantic date with a superhero, and he was asking her how her day had gone. 

“It was good,” she said, shrugging. “Kim was disappointed you didn’t come do a strip show for the class.”

She realized that that was definitely the wrong part of her day to point out as soon as she’d said it, and felt her face heating up. 

Chat seemed just as embarrassed by the thought. His face went splotchy and his hand rose to the back of his neck as his mouth opened and closed without any sound coming out. 

“I don’t—” he finally managed before breaking off again. “You’re not—is that something that, uh, you’d want? Cause I don’t think I’d be comfortable doing, uh, that.”

“No!” Marinette blurted, cringing at the mental picture of Chat using his baton as a stripper pole in her classroom. “Please do not do that. Ever.”

Chat nodded, relaxing slightly in his seat. “Okay. Good.”

“Good,” Marinette echoed, grimacing down at the table.

“Good.”

“You already said that,” she murmured and Chat snorted. She sighed, glancing back up at him. “I did miss you today, you know.”

Chat stared at her for a moment, a dopey grin spreading across his lips. “I missed you, too,” he told her, reaching over the table to rest his hands on hers.

Marinette returned his smile, cursing how easy it was for him to get under her skin. She took her hands back after a moment, grabbing a strawberry so he wouldn’t think she was trying to get away from him. 

She knew she should cut this short, that she should make an excuse about feeling sick or something and go home before she did something she shouldn’t.

She knew that, and that was what she was planning to do. 

But that wasn’t what came out when she opened her mouth. 

Instead, she brought up the latest episode of The Bachelor, which she knew he was overly invested in, and managed to effectively distract him from her confession. 

They talked about everything, from television and movies to video games to places they wanted to travel, and she surprised herself with how well she was able to carry on the conversation despite how much love and adoration was pouring from his eyes as he watched her, despite how her heart and her defences were melting with every word that fell from his lips. 

She needed to leave, but leaving was the last thing she wanted to do. She never wanted this to end, this night with Chat, his feelings for her, any of it. She knew without a doubt that she was well on her way to falling in love with her partner. A tiny voice in her head whispered that she was already there, but she chose to ignore it in favour of watching Chat’s hands fly as he described a scene in a movie he thought she’d like.

A crack of lightning lit up the night, the sky immediately opening up in a downpour. 

Marinette squealed, trying to shield herself from the rain with her purse. She jumped when Chat grabbed her hand a moment later, staring at him with wide eyes for a moment before letting him tug her across the roof. 

They stopped under a ledge that was barely large enough to cover them both, and she had to press herself close to him to keep herself completely out of the rain. 

Another bolt of lightning illuminated his face, and she sucked in a breath at just how close they really were. 

He was talking, saying something about how they’d have to wait this out, how he didn’t want to risk carrying her across the rooftops in this storm, how much of an idiot he was that he hadn’t thought to check the forecast, how sorry he was for ruining her evening like this, but she didn’t hear any of it. She was too distracted by the rise and fall of his chest against hers, by the way the rain had soaked his hair, sticking it to his forehead in a way that was just begging for her to run her fingers through it, by the way her heart was beating so loudly that there was no way he couldn’t hear it, by how inviting his lips looked as he spoke. 

She was just as drenched as him, but, when she shivered, it wasn’t from the cold but from the feel of his hand on her hip as he pulled her further into their shelter. 

Marinette knew in that moment that she was going to do something stupid, be it kiss him or confess her love or propose, which, honestly, she wouldn’t put past herself at this moment in time. Marinette In Probable Love wasn’t exactly the most reasonable person. 

She couldn’t breathe and she knew she was going to do something stupid if she didn’t put some space between them like five minutes ago, so she made a split second decision and grabbed his hands and pulled him back into the rain. 

Which, while probably a stupid decision for her health, was a lot less stupid than giving into her feelings. 

“What are you doing?” He had to yell to be heard over the downpour.

“Dance with me!” she yelled back, letting him go so she could spin in the rain, water splashing up around her. 

Chat didn’t point out that there was no music. He didn’t point out that dancing in the rain was probably going to get them sick, or that neither of them knew how to dance.

He just laughed, and it was a sound so glorious that she froze in her tracks to watch him. And then he was coming closer and taking her hands, and sending them both twirling across the rooftop, their giggles trailing behind. 

It was fun, spinning and dancing with Chat. Neither of them were taking it serious at all, throwing each other into twirls and jumping in puddles. Marinette sent Chat into a dramatic dip, and he retaliated by swinging her into the air. 

If Marinette had been thinking clearly, she would have hoped that whoever owned this rooftop would think the damage to their flowers was from the storm and not from a couple of teenagers on a date. If she had been thinking clearly, she would have realized that dancing with Chat Noir was almost as stupid as staying under that ledge would have been. 

But she wasn’t thinking clearly, breathless as she spun around with Chat, the thunder and lightning all the music they needed. 

She wasn’t thinking, so, when Chat sent her out in a particularly energetic twirl, and her feet slipped in a puddle on her way back in, she didn’t think about the consequences of catching herself on his chest. 

His hand wound around her waist to steady her, her own pressing into him near his bell, and the voice that had been telling her that this was a bad idea had long since disappeared. 

Her eyes caught his, glowing in the night, and she pressed herself closer. He sucked in a quick breath at that, his arms tightening around her, and there was nowhere she’d rather be. 

A bolt of lightning crossed the sky, and she used its light to take in the awe scrawled across his face. 

And, just for a moment, she forgot. She forgot that this wasn’t real, not for him, that being as in love with him as she feared she was clearly wasn’t a good idea. 

There was nothing stopping her from sliding her arms behind his neck, from tangling her fingers in his hair. There was nothing stopping her from rising onto her toes and kissing him like she needed it to live. 

So she did. 

And it was magical. 

He gasped when her lips touched his, but it was barely a moment before he was kissing her back, somehow managing to pull her even closer. One hand gripped her soaked shirt, his claws on the other sending shivers down her spine as he dragged it up her back to press between her shoulder blades. 

It was hours and only seconds before she pulled back, unable to go any longer without breathing. Their foreheads were pressed together, and she took a moment to catch her breath before she opened her eyes, gazing up into his. 

Chat was grinning at her, lopsided and genuine and quite possibly the happiest she’d ever seen him. She smiled back, and he ducked in closer to run their noses together. 

“I love you, Marinette,” he whispered, and she giggled, closing the space between them to peck a quick kiss onto his lips. 

“I—” She broke off, frowning. She’d meant to say it back, tell him she loved him, too. Because she did. As much as she’d been denying it, she’d fallen in love with Chat Noir over the last few days. 

But that was when the thoughts that she’d pushed away came crashing back. 

Because as real as this was for her, it wasn’t for him. 

She choked on a sob, pulling away and closing her eyes too quickly to see Chat’s smile fall, his face scrunching up in confusion. She couldn’t stop her tears, couldn’t stop the heaving sobs that wracked her body. She couldn’t make herself pull away again when Chat tugged her against him, his hands running through her hair in comfort, not when it felt so right. 

Her sobs eventually subsided and her tears ran dry. 

“What’s wrong?” Chat murmured against her hair. “Did I do something?”

Marinette shook her head, forcing herself to pull back from his warmth.

“It’s not real,” she reminded him and herself. “You’re not really in love with me. It’s just the spell. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

She tried to pry herself out of his arms, but he refused to budge, tugging her closer instead.

“You’re wrong,” he pleaded. “Marinette, Princess, look at me. Please.” She hesitated before complying. His eyes were desperate, and he moved a hand to cup her face. “My feelings are real, okay? I promise they’re real. I love you more than anything. I promise.”

Marinette shook her head, resisting the urge to lean into the comfort of his palm. “It’s not,” she told him. “It’s the love spell, Chat. It’s making you think it’s real, but it’s not.”

“It is,” he insisted, his eyes widening as he stared down at her. “What else do I need to do to prove it to you? Whatever it is, I’ll do it, Marinette. Just tell me what I have to do.”

Marinette closed her eyes. “You have to still be in love with me on Monday.”

“I will.” She opened her eyes, meeting the determination in his. “I’ll still be in love with you on Monday. I’ll never stop loving you, Princess. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that, Chat,” she told him, reaching out to trail her fingers across his cheek before jerking them back like he’d burnt her. “The spell will wear off on Sunday night, and you won’t be in love with me anymore.” His mouth opened to protest, but she shook her head. “I want this to be real. I want you to be actually in love with me, but you’re not. And, on Monday morning, you’re going to realize that too.”

“It is real,” he told her again. “If being in love with you on Monday is what I have to do to make you see that, then that’s what I’ll do. But I’m going to spend every minute until then trying to prove it to you anyway.”

“Chat,” she whispered, and didn’t stop him as he pressed his forehead against hers once more.

“Please, Marinette,” he murmured, pulling her closer. “I’ll prove it to you on Monday. I will. I  _ know _ that how I feel about you is real.” She shook her head but didn’t move back. “I know how I feel, and I think I know how you feel. Please let me kiss you again.”

“Chat, we shouldn’t,” she protested weakly, clutching at his suit. “It isn’t fair to you.”

“Don’t you think I can decide what’s fair to me myself?” he asked, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone. “I’m in love with you, Marinette. I know you don’t believe me yet, but I do. Can’t you pretend you believe me? Just for tonight?”

She stared at him for a long moment, the rain still coming down in sheets around them. She should say no. She should push him away and wait out the rain away from him. She should tell him to stay away until Monday. She should reject him for both their sakes. 

But she didn’t want to do any of that. And he was there, right in front of her, insisting he loved her, pleading and desperate for her to believe him.

And she wanted to. God, how she wanted to believe him. Maybe his feelings were real. Maybe he’d been in love with Marinette for real, and the spell was only a catalyst for him to act on it.

She shouldn’t do it, but she wanted to. 

So she found her eyes closing as she leaned into the hand that was still cupping her cheek. 

“Okay,” she whispered, and she felt his shaky breath of relief against her lips. “We can pretend. But just for tonight.”

“Just for tonight,” he echoed, before capturing her lips. 

It was a moment or two before she reciprocated, before she pushed her thoughts away and let herself revel in this, let herself pretend he loved her in the way she loved him. She was going to hate herself later, but not right now. Right now she was here, in a rooftop garden in the rain with Chat Noir, and they were in love.

She wrapped her arms around him and tugged him closer, pouring all her love for him into their kiss as her tears mixed with the rain. 

*********

Adrien sunk to the floor of his room a few hours later with a sigh, not even moving when Emma crawled onto his face. 

“What are you smiling for, kid?” Plagg wondered, joining the party with a piece of cheese. “In my experience, that much crying isn’t usually a good thing.”

“She loves me,” he whispered, lifting Emma above his face and grinning at her. “Marinette loves me.”

Plagg eyed him skeptically. “Did she actually say that?”

“Well, not exactly.” Adrien shrugged, sitting up and depositing Emma into his lap. “But only because she’s scared that I’m under some sort of spell. Which is ridiculous, right?” Plagg opened his mouth for a moment before closing it again and shrugging. Adrien didn’t seem concerned about his lack of a real response. “When I’m still in love with her on Monday, she won’t be scared of her feelings.”

“What are you going to do until then?” Plagg wondered. “We should do more of that singing thing with your look-a-likes. That was fun.”

Adrien shook his head. “She doesn’t want me to be that obvious,” he reminded his kwami. “But I’m going to do everything I can to convince her that I’m right. Monday is too far away. I have to make her see before then.”

Plagg grumbled to himself, but followed when Adrien stood abruptly to move to the computer. He rolled his eyes as his chosen sighed dreamily at the wallpaper, which Adrien had recently changed to a selfie of himself and Marinette. 

“What are you doing?” Plagg wondered. “Shouldn’t you be going to bed? It’s, like, two in the morning. Nathalie’s going to wake you up in four hours for the photoshoot. 

Adrien waved him off. “Which means I only have four hours to plan tomorrow night,” he pointed out. “It has to be absolutely perfect if I’m going to convince her I really love her.”

Plagg rolled his eyes and went to find Emma so they, at least, could get some sleep. If Adrien wanted to face his father’s disappointment for the bags that were going to be under his eyes, that was his problem. 

Adrien traced his fingers over Marinette’s face on the screen, sighing in bliss. Had he really just spent the last few hours making out with her? As upsetting as it was that she still didn’t believe him, that had definitely been the best thing to happen to him in his entire life.

He clicked into the document that held his plans for the next night, reading them over. There was going to be enough romance to punch someone in the face, but it had to be perfect. 

She was going to see that he really loved her if it was the last thing he did. 


	9. Come and Get It, at a Knocked Down Price

She was an idiot. It was official. Marinette Dupain-Cheng was the biggest idiot who’d ever lived. 

How had she ever thought that kissing Chat would be a good idea? Sure, he was adorable and romantic and funny and cute, and, yeah, his hair was really soft and his smile made her heart skip a beat, and she definitely didn’t regret the kisses themselves because, god, that had been amazing, but it had been a terrible idea and had gone against her carefully laid plans to ignore her feelings. 

After Chat had dropped her back off on her balcony with a goodbye kiss that she’d felt in her very soul, she’d collapsed into bed and her tears had returned. Tikki had barely managed to coax her into changing out of her wet clothes, and she’d spent the next few hours bawling her eyes out and bemoaning what a horrible person she was until she’d managed to cry herself to sleep. 

She ignored her alarm when it rang, not even bothering to turn it off. The annoying buzz was the perfect soundtrack to her misery. Tikki eventually had enough and silenced the alarm before tucking herself into her chosen’s neck. 

It was a while later when her mother came upstairs. 

“Marinette, are you really still in bed?” she called, emphasizing her words with an exasperated sigh. “The school just phoned and wanted to know why you weren’t in class. Which started an hour ago.”

“I don’t feel well,” Marinette grumbled. It was a necessary lie. There was no way she’d be able to handle classes today. 

Sabine’s head popped up into the loft a moment later, followed by the rest of her. Marinette figured she must have looked awful, as her mother just clicked her tongue. 

“You don’t look very good,” she said, laying a hand on her daughter’s forehead. “I’ll come check on you later, dear. Try to eat something, and a shower might make you feel better.”

Marinette nodded and her mother disappeared. Tikki came out from under her pillow as her phone buzzed for the millionth time that morning. 

“It’s Alya again,” the kwami said. “She wants to know if you’re late because you were up too late, um, having sex with Chat Noir.”

Marinette squinted. “Is that really what she said?” It didn’t sound like Alya’s wording. 

Tikki shrugged. “I paraphrased.”

Marinette grabbed her phone and glanced at the latest text. 

_ Girl, you better be late cause you spent all night banging a superhero and now you can’t walk straight. I’m not gonna accept any other excuse.  _

That was definitely more what she expected. Another text came in. 

_ And I better be getting all the deets. _

Marinette groaned and threw her phone across the room, hearing a satisfying crash as it hit something.

Why did she have to kiss him?  It had been a terrible idea, honestly.  So, so stupid.  

“What am I going to do, Tikki?” she asked as the tears welled up in her eyes once more.  “He’s going to hate me when he realizes what I did.”

“He’s not going to hate you,” Tikki assured her, stroking her cheek.

Marinette shook her head and turned away from her kwami, letting her tears escape.  Of course he was going to hate her.  She’d put him under a love spell and then taken advantage of him during it.  She’d be more surprised if he didn’t hate her.  She could still be with him as Ladybug, she knew, but could she do it?  Could she date him as Ladybug knowing he hated her as Marinette?

Her tears turned to sobs and she buried her face in her pillow, wishing she could go back in time to stop herself from making and drinking that stupid potion.

She must have drifted off at some point, because the next thing she knew was her face was stuck to her pillow with drool and snot and tears and the door to her room was slamming open.

“Marinette?”

It was Alya’s voice, and Marinette groaned loudly enough for her friend to hear.  She unstuck her face from her pillow and used her sleeve to haphazardly wipe the gunk off her face.  It was a few moments before Alya made her way onto her bed, Nino following behind.

“Did it really go that badly, hon?” Alya asked, crawling up the bed and lying on one side of her.  Nino echoed her movements on the other side, and Marinette fought against the tears that were threatening to return as they squished her into a sandwiched hug.

“No,” Marinette whispered, shaking her head.  “It went really, really well.”  She was silent after that for a moment, knowing her friends were probably confused.  She sniffed.  “I kissed him.  A lot.  I think I love him, and he’s going to hate me.”

She broke off with a sob, turning her face into Alya’s neck.  Her friends exchanged a look over her head.

They held her until her sobs stopped and her tears faded away, until she could pull her face back from Alya’s to stare up at the skylight, both hoping and dreading that Chat would show up.

If he did, he’d be concerned for her.  But he’d be able to assure her his feelings would real.  He’d kiss her tears away and hold her until she believed him, until she believed that loving him wasn’t a horrible idea.  It’s what he’d done last night, and she wanted that again more than anything.  She wanted it, wanted  _ him _ , so much it terrified her.

Which was why he couldn’t show up.  Not until she’d figured out how to deal with her feelings.

“What do I do?”

“What do you  _ want _ to do?” Alya asked.  “If he wasn’t under the spell, what would you want to do?”

Marinette closed her eyes.  She imagined late nights talking and laughing with Chat.  She imagined kissing him in the dark, tangling her fingers in his soft hair.  She imagined holding him close, listening to his heartbeat as they drifted off to sleep.  She imagined him catching her around the waist on patrol, refusing to let her down until she promised him a kiss.  She imagined him maskless, their hands swinging between them as they walked down the street.

“I’d want to be with him,” she said, knowing it was wrong but that it was what she wanted.  She wanted to be with Chat so much it hurt.

Alya sat up, pulling the others with her.  “Here’s what I think,” she said, grasping Marinette’s hands.  “I think that when Chat Noir shows up tonight, you go and do whatever ridiculously romantic thing he’s got planned.  You hold his hand, you cuddle, and you kiss him until he can’t think of possibly wanting to kiss anyone else.  And then you do it again tomorrow and on Sunday.  And then on Sunday night, you remind him that the spell is going to wear off, and you give him one last kiss to remember you by.  When he wakes up in the morning, he’s going to remember how much fun he had with you and realize he can’t live without your kisses, and he’ll come back here begging you to give him a chance.”

Marinette sniffed, shaking her head.  “I can’t,” she said, but oh she wanted to.  “It’s not fair.  Not to him and not to me.”

Alya nodded.  “Then you make something up,” she said.  “Give him a reason that you can’t see him for the rest of the weekend, and try to get over him.  Maybe on Monday he’ll come back and want to be with you, or maybe he won’t.”

Marinette took her hands back, pressing them against her eyes.  “I don’t think I can do that, either,” she admitted.  “If I tell him he can’t see me for the next few days, he’ll look all sad and I’ll change my mind in a second.”

Nino gave her a pat on the shoulder.  “Then we’ll come up with something else,” he told her.  “But lunch is almost over and we have to get back.”

“We’ll come over again after school,” Alya promised, pulling Marinette in for a hug.  “I expect you to have had a shower and have brushed your hair by the time we get back.”

Marinette nodded in agreement, and her friends left.  She debated going back to wallowing, but decided that she’d rather Chat didn’t see her with snot all over her face and pushed herself out of bed.

The shower did help, she had to admit.  She felt a lot calmer, and thought that maybe she could do this.  Maybe she could resist Chat for a few more days.  She decided to curl her hair, since she had time, and told her mother she was feeling a lot better when she asked.  She played a couple of video games, and only watched Alya’s Chatstreet Boys video three times.

All in all, she was feeling a lot better when Alya and Nino rejoined her later that evening.

“Have you decided what to do?” Alya asked, noting her friend’s meticulously done hair and makeup, as well as the cute outfit she’d decided to put on at some point during the day.

“Nope!”  Marinette flopped back on her chaise with a sigh.  “I just wanted to look pretty when he came over.”

“Well, you’ve definitely covered that,” Nino said.  Alya glanced over at her boyfriend, amused, and he shrugged.  “But I think you still need a plan.”

Marinette groaned and tossed an arm over her face.  “I had a plan last night to keep things platonic,” she pointed out.  “And then I made out with him for like five hours.”

Her friends stared at her.

“Holy shit,” Alya said, resisting the urge to squeal.  “You made out with Chat fucking Noir?  For five  _ hours _ ?  Why didn’t you tell us this immediately?  I need all the details.  Is he a good kisser?  What was it like?”

“It was the best thing ever.”  Marinette sighed, letting a dreamy smile settle over her face as she remembered the night before.  At some point they’d moved back under the shelter, and she’d let him crowd her against the wall, and  _ god _ she wanted to do that again.  Her fingers moved unconsciously to the hickey she’d found when getting ready for her shower, tracing over the extra foundation she’d used to hide it.  “He was...he was perfect.”

Alya did squeal then, joining her on the chaise.  Nino rolled his eyes and settled into the desk chair, taking a handful of Crème Eggs from the still-full basket.

“Marinette,” he said, and they turned to look at him.  “Is there any way you can possibly think of that can keep you from kissing him again tonight?”

Marinette sat up, staring down at her lap guiltily.  “No,” she admitted.  “I tried last night, but he was just so cute and sweet and the whole night was just so romantic and—no.  If I see him, I’m going to kiss him eventually.  And I want to, so badly, so it’s probably not going to take much convincing.”  She shrugged.  God, she was a horrible person.

Alya nodded, turning to face her.  “Then you need to be prepared for that,” she said.  “You need to forget about the spell, and just live.  If you’re going to kiss him anyway, there’s no use feeling guilty about it.  You need to pretend that this is some sort of weekend fling and get ready to move on after it’s over.  Okay?  Do you think you can do that?”

Marinette twisted her fingers together mulling it over.  Could she do that?  Could she make herself forget about the spell?  Chat certainly had the night before, when they’d pressed themselves as tightly together as they could, when his kisses had trailed upwards and he’d sent sparks shooting through her as he lightly bit her earlobe.

That was her only option, really, wasn’t it?  She didn’t trust herself to not kiss him again once she saw him that night.  She didn’t trust herself to resist his kitten eyes as she told him she couldn’t see him anymore this weekend.  She didn’t want to break his heart, so she had to settle with setting her own up to break.

She nodded.  She could do this.  She could forget about the spell and kiss Chat without any guilt.

“I think so,” she said, looking back up at her friends.

“Good.”  Alya smiled at her, and Nino nodded.  “What time is he coming at?”

“Nine.”  Marinette glanced at the clock and sighed.  It was still over three and a half hours away.

*********

“I can’t do this.  I can’t do this.  Oh my god, I’m gonna die.”

Alya rolled her eyes, watching her friend pace across her room.  Marinette had spent the last three  and a half hours going back and forth between being all for her date with Chat and thinking she was the worst person in the universe; honestly, it was getting old.

“Your turn,” she said, elbowing Nino in the side.

Nino sighed and leaned forward steepling his hands on his knees.  “You’re not going to die,” he said for about the millionth time.  “You can do this, Marinette.  And, if you don’t think you can, we can tell Chat you’re sick and to go home.”

Marinette spun to face them, eyes wide.  “No!” she squawked, waving her hands.  “We can’t do that!  He’ll be heartbroken!”

“Then stop freaking out.”  Nino relaxed back against the chaise, folding his arms behind his head.  “You’re gonna be fine, Mari.  He’ll be here any minute, so just chill out.”

Marinette felt her heart stop as she glanced at the clock.  Was it really nine o’clock already?

“Shit,” she hissed, rushing to her mirror.  “Does my hair look okay?  I think the curls deflated.  Shit, I look like a mess.”

“You look great.”  Alya sighed and stood, crossing the room to wrap her arms around her friend.  “He’s not gonna be able to resist you.”

Marinette groaned and pressed her hands against her eyes.  “He already can’t resist me because of the—”

“Hey!” Alya interrupted, slapping Marinette’s arm.  “I thought we agreed you were going to forget about that.”

Marinette sent her a desperate look.  “I  _ know _ .  But it’s  _ hard. _ ”

A thump came from above, and Marinette jumped.

“Breathe,” Alya told her, rubbing her arm, and Marinette took a shaky breath.

She could do this.  She could go on this date with Chat and forget that it wasn’t real and not feel guilty about it.

There was a quick knock, and then the skylight opened and Chat stuck his head in.  “Hey, Princess,” he called, glancing around the room.  “Oh, you guys are here, too.  Cool.”

“We were just leaving,” Alya assured him, giving Marinette a light shove towards the ladder.

“Do you want to come in?” Marinette asked, glancing between her partner and her friends.  If she was going to potentially be dating Chat after this was all over, he should meet her friends at some point, right?

Chat bit his lip, eyes darting between her and something outside.  “I shouldn’t,” he finally said.  “There’s something out here that I really shouldn’t just leave by itself.”

Marinette froze for a moment and shared a look with Alya.  “You didn’t buy me another pet, did you?” she asked.  “Because Emma’s amazing and all, but you already know I couldn’t keep her and—”

“No!” he cut in, shaking his head.  “It’s not alive.  Just...kind of large and conspicuous and I should probably keep an eye on it.”

Marinette frowned at that, sending a quick glance back at her friends before hurrying up.  Chat pulled himself back onto the roof and offered her a hand, tugging her up after him.

Marinette froze, staring at the thing in shock.  “Is that...that’s a hot air balloon.”

“Yup!”  Chat’s grin would have been wide enough to be infectious if she hadn’t still been processing this whole thing.

“Holy shit.”  Marinette turned to see Alya crawling up through the hatch, Nino no doubt following.  “Where did you get a hot air balloon?”

“They’re actually pretty easy to get,” Chat said, shrugging, and turned his grin back on Marinette.  “Pretty romantic, right?”

Marinette couldn’t answer, since she was still too busy staring at the balloon.  It was absolutely monstrous, the basket resting just off her balcony, a rope tying it to the chimney.  The balloon itself was striped in rainbow colours, and stretched upwards further than she could see.

“Right,” Nino agreed dryly, rolling his eyes.  “Nothing says  _ I love you _ like giant flammable sacks of air.”

“I know, right?”  Chat bounced on his heels, excited that someone saw the brilliance of his plan.  He crossed the small distance between himself and Marinette and pulled her hands into his.  “I remembered what you said during that moving the other night, how you thought hot air balloons were really romantic.  I reserved it as soon as I got home.”

Marinette felt her heart contract.  As stupidly unsubtle as going out for a hot air balloon ride with Chat Noir was going to be, the fact that he’d taken her offhand comment to heart was really sweet.  And she hadn’t been lying when she’d said hot air balloons were terribly romantic.  God, she wanted to kiss him already.

So she did.  Or, well, his cheek anyway.

“Thank you,” she whispered into his ear.  “I love it.”  She pulled away a moment later and sent him a smile.  “I just need to grab my purse and some shoes and then we can go, okay?”

He nodded, and she retreated into her room, her friends following behind her.  She stopped on the floor, staring at her purse for a long moment.

“You can do this,” Alya told her, pulling her into a hug.  “A hot air balloon date has been your dream for forever.  Just forget the spell and let it happen.”

Marinette took a deep breath and nodded.  She pulled away from Alya to slip on her shoes, and took a quick peek in her purse to confirm that Tikki had made her way inside.

“We can let ourselves out,” Nino assured her.  “Have fun, dude.”

“Knock him dead, babe,” Alya added, and they disappeared out the door.

Marinette made her way back onto the roof, and offered Chat a grin.  “Ready?”

“Of course,” he said, taking her hand and pulling it to his lips for a kiss.  “You look beautiful.”

Marinette blushed and had barely a moment to wonder how she was supposed to climb into the basket when it came up almost to her neck and wasn’t on a solid surface before Chat had grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her over the edge.  She landed rather unceremoniously on her butt, but managed to have just enough time to stand and fix her clothes before Chat followed her in with the rope.

And then they were lifting up, floating higher and higher into the sky.

Marinette pressed herself against the edge of the basket, watching Paris get smaller and smaller beneath them.  They were higher up than she’d ever been as Ladybug, and it was amazing.  She could see little dots of people below, and the lights of the buildings shone up against the night.

Chat joined her a moment later, once they were high enough that no one would be able to tell it was Chat Noir in the hot air balloon.  His hand was next to hers on the edge of the basket, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off it but far away enough to not actually be touching her.

She could tell he was itching to touch her again, to pull her close and kiss her the way he had last night.  It was nice that he was respecting her words the night before, that he hadn’t just assumed that she’d want that again.  But she did want that again, and it was getting harder and harder to remember why it wouldn’t be a good idea.

So she lifted her hand, shifted it over, and covered his, squeezing gently.

She watched him turn to look at her from the corner of her eye, her heart racing as she pretended to still be watching the sights.

“Marinette,” he whispered after a long moment, and she was taken aback by the want and the longing in his eyes when she turned to watch him.  “I know we said it would be only for the night, but is there any chance you’ve reconsidered?”

Marinette swallowed heavily.  This was it.  This was the moment where she’d decide whether to wallow for the rest of the weekend or to forget and go all in.  But hadn’t she already made that decision when she’d kissed him the night before?

“Can you promise me something?” she asked, and he nodded.  “When you wake up on Monday and aren’t in love with me—”  She watched him open his mouth to argue, and she sighed and amended her words.  “ _ If _ you wake up on Monday and aren’t in love with me anymore, can you promise me you won’t hate me for giving in?”

Chat stared at her for a while, and she could tell it was killing him not to assure her again that he wasn’t under any spell.  He turned his hand in hers until he could thread their fingers together and lifted them off the basket so he could take a step closer.

“I promise,” he said, raising his free hand to brush against her cheek.  “I could never hate you, Marinette.  You’re one of my best friends.  Even if I wasn’t in love with you, hating you would be impossible.  There’s nothing you could ever do to make me hate you, Princess.”

Marinette let out a shaky breath, searching his eyes for any sign of hesitation.  “Really?”

“Really.”  He nodded, squeezing her hand.

Marinette studied him a little longer.  She didn’t want to ask what he meant by her being one of his best friends.  As far as she knew, he was still oblivious to her being Ladybug and, before this week, he’d only met Marinette a handful of times.  She wasn’t sure why he thought she was one of his best friends, but she also didn’t care right then.

She dropped his hand, and his face fell in the seconds before she’d thrown her arms around his neck and crashed her lips into his.  He was frozen for a moment, before suddenly springing to life.  The hand that was still on her cheek moved to dig into her hair, his other wrapping tightly around her waist and pulling her closer.

She let the kiss soften, sighing as his lips gently caressed hers.  She pulled back only when she had to breathe, her fingers running up his neck to tangle in his hair as she pressed their foreheads together.

“I want to be with you, Chat,” she whispered.  His breath stuttered at her words, and his hand clenched tighter in her shirt.  “I want to be with you for a long time, but this weekend might be all we have.  And I’m okay with that.  I mean, I’m not, but I can be.  And, if this weekend’s it, then I want to make the most of it.”

Chat nodded against her, turning his face just enough to press a kiss to the corner of her lips.  “I’ll still be in love with you on Monday,” he promised.  “You’ll see.”

Marinette pretended she believed him and let him kiss her until she forgot there was anything she needed to believe.

They broke apart eventually, because they were in a hot air balloon and this had been a dream of Marinette’s for far too long for her to miss, no matter how amazing his kisses were.

She leaned back over the edge, staring down into the night, and Chat wrapped himself around her, pressing kisses against her neck.  It seemed that now that she’d finally let him kiss her, he wanted to make up for lost time.

“Chat,” she said a while later, when the lights of Paris were starting to grow further away.  He hummed against her.  “You know how to fly this thing, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, nuzzling against her.

“I mean we’re getting kind of far from Paris,” she pointed out, and felt him lift his head.  “And I kind of need to pee.  I think we should probably start heading back.”

“Right,” Chat said, pressing a last kiss against her collar before pulling away.  “Back.”

She turned and watched him stare up into the balloon for far longer than was probably necessary, and frowned.

“Chat,” she said again.  “You do know how this thing works, right?”

Chat shrugged.  “The guy told me what to do,” he said, grimacing.  “I might have just forgot?”

Marinette stared at him for a long moment before bursting into laughter.  Of course he didn’t have any idea how to get them down.  She was on a date with the embodiment of bad luck, after all.  At least the balloon hadn’t caught on fire.

When she calmed down, Chat was watching her with an exaggerated pout that was just begging for her to kiss it away.  So she did, and what was meant to be a quick kiss turned into another, and another, until her toes were curling and she was clutching him for dear life.

“Chat,” she panted, his kisses trailing down her neck again.  He dragged his teeth along her pulse before sucking the skin there into his mouth, humming around it as she tried again to catch his attention, turning her call of his name into a groan.  “As much as I’m enjoying this, it’s not helping us get to the ground.”

He released her skin a few moments later, pressing a kiss against the spot and then a quick, chaste one against her lips.

“Do you have any better ideas?” he asked, and Marinette rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “Don’t you have a really long stick?  Could that reach the ground from here?”

Chat considered it and shrugged.  “First of all, it’s not a stick.  It’s a baton.”  Marinette stuck out her tongue, and he poked her nose.  “But it’s worth a shot.”

His baton did, in fact, reach the ground, and he held them in place as Marinette tied the balloon’s rope around his waist.

“Don’t fall and die,” she teased, helping to hold the baton in place as he climbed over the edge of the basket.  “If you fall, I’ll be stuck up here forever.”

He kissed her soundly.  “I’m not going to fall,” he assured her, and then he was out of her sight.

It took a few minutes before she could really feel it working, before the lights she could see below got closer.  Eventually trees started to rise up around them, and she wondered just how far they were from Paris.

She started to worry when the basket started rising again, but then Chat was appearing over the side and she realized he’d just tied them down.

“Princess,” he said, grinning widely and holding an arm wide.  “Your chariot awaits.”

Marinette grinned back, twining her arms around her neck and letting him pull her from the basket.  “My hero,” she declared, wrapping her legs around his and pressing a kiss against his cheek.

They rode his baton the few metres to the ground, and Marinette was hesitant to untangle herself from him once they reached it.

“So,” she asked, back on her own feet but still pressed against his chest.  “How do we get it back to Paris?”

“We don’t.”  Chat shrugged, replacing his baton on his belt and dragging a hand through her hair.  “The guy said to just leave it wherever we landed and he’d pick it up tomorrow.”

Marinette laughed, leaning into his touch.  “I can’t believe he let you take it on your own without knowing how to actually use it.”

“I might have paid him extra for that,” Chat admitted, his grin sending shivers down her spine.  “It was definitely worth it, though.”

“Really?” Marinette darted her tongue out, feeling a thrill at the way he watched it drag across her lips.

“Really,” he repeated, pulling his hand from her hair and replacing it at her waist.  “Because now there’s no one around to watch me do this.”

She squealed as he lifted her up, her arms tightening around his neck and her legs wrapping around his waist to keep herself from falling.  Her back touched something, and she realized he’d pressed her against a tree.  The want in his eyes had her gasping before he’d even kissed her, and then she couldn’t concentrate on anything but kissing him back.

“I love you,” he whispered, lips leaving hers to cover her face in kisses.  “I love you so much, Marinette.”

It would be a bad idea to say it back, no matter how badly she wanted to, even if she couldn’t quite think of why that was.  So she dug her fingers into his hair, swallowing his groan as she recaptured his lips.

Sometime later, Chat pulled back, nuzzling into her neck to press kisses there.

“We should get going,” he murmured against her.  “We’ll have to walk a bit before the buildings get close enough for us to travel by rooftop.”

Marinette made a noise of agreement, unwrapping her legs from around him and sliding back to the ground.  Unfortunately—or fortunately; they were both a bit too distracted to really have a solid stance on the subject—this drastically changed the height difference of their recent kisses, and neither could resist curling back into each other to take advantage of the different angle.

Eventually they managed to part for long enough to start the trek back to Paris, clasped hands swinging between them as they walked.

*********

“And here we are,” Chat said, and Marinette pulled her face away from his back enough to notice that they had, in fact, made it back to the bakery.

The journey had taken longer than it probably should have, and the blame fell on both of them.  When Chat was talking about something he enjoyed, his face lit up and it was impossible for Marinette to not pull him down into a kiss.  And when Marinette described a recent design she’d been making, she’d wave her hands a lot and scrunch up her eyebrows, and you really couldn’t fault Chat for having to kiss the crease away, and he couldn’t just kiss her forehead without including her lips.  It was only fair.

But they’d made it home, and, even though she was sleepy, Marinette didn’t want the night to end.  And, from the way his tail stayed wrapped around her waist even after she’d slid off his back, she could tell Chat didn’t want it to, either.

“Do you want to come inside?” she asked, gazing up at him with hopeful eyes.  “Just for a few minutes?”

Chat stared at her with wide eyes, reaching out to caress her cheek.  “I’d love to.”

They made their way in and Marinette quickly changed into her pyjamas before rejoining Chat on her bed.  She smiled at how comfortable he looked, splayed out across it, and how different that was from his nervousness at joining her earlier in the week.

“Enjoying the view?” he asked, smirking up at her, and Marinette rolled her eyes.

“Maybe,” she admitted, crawling across her bed and into his waiting arms.

“That’s good,” he hummed, lazily dragging his lips across her jaw.  “Did you have any plans when you invited me in?”

“Not really.”  Marinette paused, tilting her head to give him better access as his lips trailed down her neck.  “Are you going to keep doing that, or are you going to kiss me properly?”

Chat pulled away to grin at her, and she squeaked when he was suddenly above her, so quickly she barely saw him move.

“If you insist,” he said, before claiming her lips.

It was more than a few minutes before Marinette was yawning into their kisses and Chat insisted he leave, claiming the need to be at work in a few hours.  She watched through heavy eyes as he stood up, admiring the hickeys she’d left on him after tugging down his zipper a bit.  He watched her in much of the same way, and she wasn’t surprised at all when he fell back onto the bed to tug her into another kiss.

“I love you, Princess,” he whispered, brushing his thumb over her cheek.

“Same time tomorrow?” she whispered back, and he nodded, kissing her softly once more before making his way out of the skylight, closing the hatch behind him.

Marinette pressed her fingers against her lips as she crawled under the covers, staring out at the sky.

“Tikki?”

Her kwami fluttered in front of her face, eyeing her chosen carefully.  “Yes, Marinette?”

Her hand fell back against her bed and she closed her eyes.  “Am I a terrible person?”

“No, Marinette.  Of course not,” Tikki assured her, hugging her cheek in reassurance.

Marinette nodded, though she didn’t entirely believe her, and let herself drift off.


	10. While You've Still Got Time

Adrien smacked blindly at his alarm clock until it shut off, and rolled onto his back with a sigh.  He was pretty sure Marinette was starting to believe him, and last night had been amazing.  Sure, he’d stayed out past four in the morning, and he was definitely going to die at the photoshoot today since he’d be running on less than two hours of sleep, but he was going to see her again tonight.

It was finally the last day of his photoshoot, and he hoped it wouldn’t take long to get all the shots they needed so he could catch up on some sleep before visiting Marinette.

He groaned and rolled out of bed, knowing it was better to be ready when Nathalie came to get him, and he probably needed a shower.

He shucked his shirt as he entered the bathroom, and froze at the sight of his reflection.  His fingers rose slowly to trace over the half dozen or so hickeys on his neck and upper chest.  He’d be in so much trouble if his father or Nathalie saw them, but he found himself grinning.  This was real.  This was proof that what he had was real, that she actually liked him and had spent most of the night before making out with him.

Adrien laughed to himself, shedding the rest of his clothes and stepping into the shower.  He almost didn’t want to cover them up, but knew he’d have to if he wanted to keep tomorrow’s schedule empty.  

*********

“Get up, loser, we’re going shopping!”

Marinette startled awake at the yell, then groaned and buried her head under her pillow.  “What time is it?” she called to Alya.  Whatever time it was, it was way too early.

“Almost one o’clock, you lazybones.”  Alya flopped onto her bed.  “I can’t believe you’re actually still asleep.  What time did you stay up till?”

“I dunno,” Marinette grumbled, crawling deeper into her blankets.  “Late.”

Alya rolled her eyes and pulled the pillow off her friend’s head.  “Well, that sucks for you,” she said.  “Because I’m not going to let you mope around in bed all day again, so we’re going shopping.”

Marinette groaned again, trying to tug the blankets over her face.  “Chat would let me sleep all day,” she told her.

“Chat would also let you shave your eyebrows and draw them back on with purple sharpie and still think you’re gorgeous,” Alya pointed out.  “Plus he’s not here, so his opinion doesn’t matter.”

Marinette sighed.  “Fine, you win.”  She sat up, stretching her arms over her head.  When she finally looked at Alya, her friend was staring at her, her expression a mixture of shocked and impressed.

“What?” she asked, checking to make sure a boob hadn’t fallen out of her shirt or something.  But both her boobs were under her shirt where they needed to be, and nothing else seemed to be out of place.

“Did you get in a fight with a vacuum cleaner last night?” Alya wondered, and Marinette slapped her hand to her neck.

“The makeup must have come off,” she sighed.  “I’d covered it up yesterday.”

Alya laughed incredulously.  “Okay, first off, the fact that you had a hickey from Chat fucking Noir yesterday and didn’t tell me will be discussed,” she said.  “And, second off, I don’t know if the makeup came off because I don’t know which one is the one you’re worried about.”

Marinette squinted at her in confusion until her friend rolled her eyes and opened the camera on her phone.  Her eyes widened as she stared at herself, counting at least a dozen hickeys across her neck and collarbones.

“You should see the other guy,” she mused, grinning at the memory of the ones she’d given him, and Alya choked on a laugh.

“You’re telling me everything,” she decided.  “But first you need to get ready so we can go shopping.”

In just over half an hour, Marinette had showered and gotten dressed, and, with her hickeys hidden by the tag team of foundation and a scarf, they were ready to go.

The first stop was a cafe for lunch—or breakfast, in Marinette’s case.

“So,” Alya said, opening up her wrap.  “Tell me everything.”

Marinette glanced around at the other customers.  “I can’t just talk about him here,” she pointed out, taking a bite of her sandwich.  She was pretty certain that revealing she was sort of dating Chat Noir by talking too loudly wouldn’t be a good idea.

But Alya just rolled her eyes.  “Give him a code name,” she suggested.  “Like, uh, Chad.”

Marinette snorted.  “Chad?”

“Yes.”  Alya folded her arms across her chest.  “Chad is a name and it works.  No more excuses.  Go.”

Marinette sighed but obliged, giving Alya the details of her time with Chat Noir.  She told her about the photo album and rooftop garden, about laughing over snacks and hiding in the rain, about dancing and how amazing it felt to finally kiss him.  She told her about the hot air balloon ride and how he didn’t have a clue how to actually fly it, about the long walk after and about not wanting him to leave.  She didn’t give her _all_ the details, because even she was a little embarrassed by just how bad her impulse control seemed to be around him, because there were some things she wanted to keep just between her and Chat.

“Wow,” Alya said, long after they’d finished their meals when Marinette had managed to catch her up on her love life.  “I mean, I really didn’t need to know exactly how much his eyes sparkle when he tells you he loves you, but wow.  It seems like you really love Chad.”

Marinette sighed, staring down at the table as she focused on folding her dirty napkin into a crane.  “I do,” she whispered.  “And it’s not fair because in two days he’s not going to feel the same way.”

Alya reached across the table, folding her hands around Marinette’s and her half-made crane.  “Mari, honey,” she said, and Marinette looked up at her friend’s earnest eyes.  “If you want to keep doing the spell every week to keep him in love with you, I’m all for it.  But Nan says her elephant shit guy needs three to five business days, so you might have to live with it for a few days before we can make a new batch.”

Marinette frowned.  “That is a horrible idea, Alya.”

“I know,” Alya agreed, sighing and leaning back in her chair.  “You’d think someone would have jumped on the elephant shit market with overnight delivery by now.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”  Marinette rolled her eyes and stared back down at her crumpled napkin.  “It wouldn’t be fair to Chad.  Doing this to him by accident once is bad enough.  I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if we did it again.”

Alya nodded in understanding.  “Then you’re going to have to accept that fact that there’s a good chance he won’t be in love with you on Monday,” she reminded her.  “Are you going to be ready?”

“No.”  Marinette shook her head, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall.  “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready, Al.  Being with Chad is so amazing and I don’t want to have to lose him.”

Alya made her way around the table to wrap her arms around her friend.  “I’ll be here for you,” she said, smacking a loud kiss against Marinette’s cheek.  “So will Nino.  And, if you change your mind, I can have elephant shit here by the end of the week and we can—”

“ _No_ , Alya.”  Marinette laughed, shoving her friend away.  She offered her a smile.  “Thanks.”

“Of course, babe.  What are best friends for?”  Alya grinned, grabbing her coat.  “Now, let’s go do some retail therapy and you can help me pick out something to wear for mine and Nino’s anniversary next week.”

*********

Marinette was on her balcony, leaning against the railing with a mug of hot chocolate in her hands and staring out at the city, when Chat arrived.

“Hi, Princess,” he whispered into her ear, his arms wrapping around her waist.  He pressed a kiss against her neck, and it took all the strength she could muster to not just lean into him and forget.

“Hello, Chat.”  She turned in his arms, bringing her mug to her lips to avoid his greeting kiss.  He pouted, and she sighed.  “I need to talk to you.”

Chat tugged her across the balcony, settling into her chair and pulling her into his lap.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, reaching over to put her mug down on the table.  “Not really.  Look, I need you to listen to me, okay?  Actually listen, and not interrupt me.  Please?”  Chat’s brows drew together in concern, but he nodded.  She sighed again, taking his hands in hers.  “I know you believe you’re really in love with me, and I want to believe it, too.  I really, really do, Chat.  Just—there’s still the fact that I drank a love potion last week and you show up the next day in love with me.  If it wasn’t you it was happening to, you’d see that that seems really suspicious, right?”  Chat was frowning at her, and she could tell it was killing him to not speak, but he nodded after a moment.  She squeezed his hands.  “Maybe you really are in love with me and this has nothing to do with the spell.  I really, really hope that’s true.  But the chances of it being a coincidence aren’t good, so I just need to be prepared for that, and I need you to know that it’s really likely you won’t feel this way on Monday.”

Chat watched her for a long moment before seeming to decide she’d finished.  He dropped her hands, cupping her face with his instead.

“I promise that everything I feel for you is real, Marinette,” he whispered, eyes pleading with her to believe him.  “I love you so much, and I’m still going to love you on Monday morning.”

She listened as he continued to profess his love and realized there was no way for her to tell if what he was saying was true or if he just believed it was.  She’d done everything she could, and at least he’d finally listened to her about the spell, even if he refused to believe it.

So she leaned forward, cutting him off with a kiss.  She poured all the love she had into it, all the words she couldn’t say yet, the ones she was too scared to.  His fingers carded gently through her hair, his tail wrapping around her waist to tug her even closer.

She pulled away eventually and tucked her face against his neck, hoping he understood.

“Can we just stay in tonight?” she asked.  She didn’t have the energy to go on whatever adventure he theoretically had planned.  “We could watch a movie and cuddle?”

His hand stroked a soothing pattern up and down her back.  “That sounds purr-fect.”

It took them a few minutes to move inside, tumbling gracelessly through the hatch and onto Marinette’s bed.  

“What’s this?” Chat asked, fishing a large crumpled gift bag from under him.  “Sorry, I think I landed on it.”

Marinette blushed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  “It’s for you,” she said, feeling her lips tilt up at the beaming smile Chat sent her way.  “I saw it today while I was shopping with Alya and just had to get it for you.”

“But I didn’t get you anything,” Chat protested, already pulling out the tissue paper, and Marinette snorted.

“Right,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “Because the ridiculous amount of presents you’ve given me this week don’t count.”

“Touché.”  Chat managed to free the gift from the tissue, holding it in front of him and laughing out loud.

“So?” Marinette asked, peering at him around the sweater.  “Do you like it?”

He didn’t answer, choosing instead to pull it over his head.  The black was almost an exact match to his suit, though the green letters proclaiming him as the cat’s meow were a shade or two off from his eyes.  He was grinning by the time his face reappeared.

“I love it,” he told her, closing the distance between them to wrap her in his arms.  “And I love  _ you _ .”  He peppered kisses over her face and she giggled, redirecting his lips to hers.

She had meant for it to be a quick kiss, but nothing was ever quick with Chat.  One kiss turned into another, and another, until she was lying underneath him in her bed, Chat pressing open-mouthed kisses into her neck as they tried to catch their breath.

“I love you,” he whispered against her, clutching her tightly.  “I love you so much, Marinette.  I always will.  I promise.”

Marinette felt her throat closing up, and pried herself out of his grip.  “I’m going to go put on pyjamas so we can watch the movie,” she said, avoiding his gaze as she crawled across the bed.

She didn’t get far before she was back in his arms, and he dropped them both to the ground.  She murmured her thanks, and set about finding a pair of pyjamas, Chat hovering closely behind her.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he started to follow her out of the trapdoor and into the rest of her house.

He blinked.  “Um, coming with you?”

Marinette laughed.  “Thanks, but I don’t need your help getting changed,” she pointed out.  “Plus what if my parents get up for a drink of water and see you?”  He pouted and she sighed, brushing her fingers along his jaw.  “I’ll just be in the bathroom for a couple minutes.  Wait here.”

Chat pouted at her for a moment before cupping her face and bringing their lips together in a kiss so intense her knees threatened to give out.

“I love you,” he reminded her when he pulled away, gazing down into her eyes.

Marinette just stared at him.  She swallowed and forced herself to make her way downstairs.

She stood in front of the mirror, gazing blankly at her reflection, and wondered what the hell was going on.

It was clear that her warnings about the spell finally seemed to have had at least a minor effect on Chat.  He’d professed his love more times this evening than he had in the entire week put together.  It was like he was compensating, trying to convince them both that there was no way his feelings weren’t real.

It was comforting, Marinette mused as she cleaned off her makeup, that she wasn’t the only one hoping this wouldn’t be over soon.  Of course, that was probably just the spell on his part, but Marinette was willing to take what she could get.

She shucked her clothes and threw on her pyjamas and quickly brushed her teeth, and caught her reflection again.  Her hickies were back on display, but she didn’t think Chat would mock her for them, considering he was the one to put them there, and the chances of running into her parents on her way back to her room were slim.

He was back in her bed when she returned, his tail flicking over the edge.

“So,” she started, picking up her tablet and climbing the ladder.  “My parents are leaving pretty early tomorrow morning to go visit friends outside of Paris, and they won’t be back until late.”  She peeked over the edge of her bed, taking in the sight of him lying against her pillows.  “If you don’t have any other plans tomorrow, would you like to hang out?”

He grinned.  “I would love to,” he told her.  “My schedule’s free tomorrow.  How early can I come over?”

Marinette shrugged.  “I don’t really like being awake before noon,” she said.  “But I suppose I could make an exception as long as we can just cuddle in bed and not have to do awake things.  You can come over whenever.”

Chat’s grin grew.  Marinette was surprised when he didn’t tease her like he normally did when Ladybug complained about being up early, and instead just opened his arms wide and inviting.  Marinette crawled across the bed and snuggled into his chest, the sweatshirt providing much more comfort than the cold leather of his suit.

She kissed him first this time, melting against him.  She held him almost as tightly as he was holding her, and he whispered his love into her skin between kisses.

She pulled back eventually, settling in against him.  “My lips hurt,” she admitted, tangling their fingers together.  “We should start a movie.”   
He hummed in agreement, his nose buried in her hair.  She queued up Netflix and picked something at random, knowing she probably wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on it anyway.

And she was right.  It only took a few minutes before they’d repositioned themselves, Chat pulling her all but on top of him to give himself access to her neck.  His fingers trailed over her hickies, and she couldn’t bring herself to care that there’d most likely be more added to her collection by the morning.  

They shared a few more kisses, neither paying nearly as much attention to the movie as they were to each other.  By the time it ended, Marinette’s fingers were deep in Chat’s hair, holding him close, and his lips were dragging sleepily against any part of her face he could reach.

“It’s late,” Chat whispered, his lazy kisses trailing along her jaw.  “I should go.”

Marinette knew he was right, that she should let him go home to his own bed to sleep.  But lying here with him just felt so right that she found herself tightening her arms around him.

“Stay with me.”  She gazed up at him, pleading with her eyes for him to not leave her, not tonight.  They had so little time left together and she couldn’t bear to waste any of it for something as simple as Chat going home to sleep.  He could sleep here.  She had a very comfy bed and more than enough room.

He watched her for a moment before swooping down, capturing her lips.  Marinette moved against him, pouring what love she could into their kiss, until her yawn interrupted them.

He smiled softly at her, pressing a quick kiss to her nose.  “I’ll always stay with you, Princess,” he promised, and she sighed as she curled up against him.

*********

He wasn’t quite sure how he was still in costume when he woke up, but he was.  Soft morning light drifted in from the skylight, bathing them in its warmth.

He lifted himself onto an arm to peer down at Marinette, still curled into his side and sleeping soundly.  Smiling gently, he brushed a lock of hair from her face, caressing his cheek.  He didn’t want to leave her, but he had to, if only for a little while.  Nathalie would be checking on his soon, so he had to at least make it seem like he’d been there all night before leaving again, and he should make sure Emma was doing okay.  He needed to let someone on the staff know that he’d be out all day so they could check on her periodically.  Plagg would also need some cheese after holding the transformation for so long.

So he pressed a kiss against her temple and made his way to the main floor of her room, quickly scribbling a vague note about where he’d gone and that he’d be back before returning to her bed to leave it on her pillow.

She was still asleep and hadn’t moved at all since he’d left.  Alya had always complained that Marinette slept like the dead, but he hadn’t really appreciated how true that was until now.

He watched her for a long moment, taking in the way the light splashed across her face, the crinkle in her brow as she burrowed closer against the pillow.  She was absolutely gorgeous, even in sleep, and he wanted to remember this moment forever.

Because, as much as he knew he loved her with everything he had, there was a tiny, paranoid part of him that wondered if she was right, that maybe he won’t feel this way the next morning.  

As much as he brushed that voice away, he wanted to remember this moment, this feeling, just in case.

It took a few more minutes before he kissed her gently on the cheek and forced himself to leave.


	11. It'll Keep You Up All Night

 

She woke up slowly, feeling warm and safe, and curled back into her blankets.  When her blankets curled in closer to her, however, that was when she finally opened her eyes.

Chat was watching her, seeming content to just lie the day away in her bed, his claws softly tracing patterns against her back.  He was still wearing his sweater, soft where her cheek was pressed against him, but his hair was damp.  Marinette figured he must have gotten up and had a shower at some point.  Their legs were tangled together under her blankets, and a soft grin spread across his face when he noticed she was awake.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Morning,” she mumbled back, pressing in closer.  Chat was surprisingly comfortable to sleep with, and she wouldn’t mind catching up on a few more hours.

Of course, now that she wasn’t asleep anymore, it all came back.  Today was Sunday, the last day of the spell.

She couldn’t spend the last hours she had with Chat sleeping.

She sat up abruptly.  “Let’s go make breakfast,” she decided.

“Can’t we cuddle longer?” Chat asked, sticking his lip out in an exaggerated pout.  Marinette resisted the urge to kiss it away.  If he’d found time to have a shower, he’d probably brushed his teeth as well, and she wasn’t going to be the only one making their kiss gross with her morning breath.

“No,” she said instead, trying to untangle herself from her sheets and him.  “I’m hungry.”

As if on cue, her stomach gurgled loudly, and Chat chuckled.

“I guess we can eat,” he allowed.  “But we’re going to cuddle again after.”

Marinette nodded in agreement and lead the way downstairs.  Brunch, as it was nearing noon already, consisted of bowls of cereal and an unhealthy amount of Crème Eggs.  Chat told Marinette he loved her a total of twenty seven times, and Marinette had to remind herself about her morning breath to resist kissing him a total of forty three times.  Brunch lasted twelve and a half minutes.

Chat swooped in for a kiss as they put away their dishes and Marinette stopped him with a finger to his lips.

“I haven’t brushed my teeth,” she reminded him, and he pouted.

“Then hurry up.”

She laughed but complied, and he trailed her into the bathroom, resting his chin on her shoulder as she brushed her teeth.  As soon as her toothbrush was back in its holder, he spun her around, pinning her against the counter and crashed his lips into hers.  She reached up to wrap her arms around her neck and kissed him back with all the pent up love she’d been holding back while her breath smelt like death.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips before pulling back and burying his face in her neck.

She stroked his hair for a moment before shooing him out so she could pee.  

She stared at her reflection in the mirror for a long time after.  This was it.  This was the last day that Chat would be in love with her.  According to Alya’s nan, the spell would wear off while he slept and would be gone by the time he woke up, in the same way it set in after he’d fallen asleep for the first time after she drank the potion.  By the time he woke up tomorrow morning, he wouldn’t be in love with her anymore.

So she was going to make the most of today, and she was not going to think about how every kiss was one closer to their last, or how he’d never look at her the same way after he realized what she’d done.

Nope.  Today was going to be relaxing, and she was going to spend it in Chat’s arms.

He was already back under her covers when she rejoined him in her room, and she tucked herself into his inviting arms.

“I love you,” he whispered, nuzzling his nose into her hair.  “What’s the plan for today?”

Marinette shrugged and kissed him just above his bell.  “I thought you wanted to cuddle,” she reminded him.

“I do,” he agreed, tugging her closer.  “But I want to know what you want to do.”

Marinette hummed in contemplation for a moment.  “Cuddle,” she decided, and that was that.

It was nearing dinnertime when they finally emerged again, kissed out and hungry.  Marinette threw the frozen pizza her parents had left for her into the oven and joined Chat in the living room to find something to watch on TV.  They found what was apparently a Friends marathon and curled up with their pizza.

Marinette kicked Chat out when her parents texted to say they were almost home, and, after a completely necessary nineteen goodbye kisses, he left, stating that he should probably make an appearance of coming home himself before all his friends started getting phone calls.  She told him he could come into her room when he got back, but to be silent until she came back up.

Tikki reminded her about her hickies as she heard the front door open, and she hurried upstairs to find something that would cover them without looking suspicious while being worn with pyjama pants.  Tikki shoved a high-necked sweatshirt into her hands as her parents called out for her, and Marinette threw it on before heading down.

She was anxious as she chatted with her parents, almost vibrating with the need to go back upstairs to see if Chat had returned yet.

Her parents went to bed at nine o’clock, as they did every night, and she was free to retreat to her room.

Chat caught her around the middle as soon as she’d closed the door behind her, pressing kisses along the back of her neck and whispering his love.

Marinette spun in his grasp and redirected his lips to her own, the ache from not being able to kiss him even for such a short amount of time eating her from the inside.  She shucked her sweater, eventually, and they cuddled back into her bed.

Neither of them said anything for a long time aside from Chat’s near constant murmuring of his love, content to just hold each other with the occasional kiss.  Marinette folded and refolded their fingers together, dreading the moment she knew was coming, and Chat pulled her into a kiss whenever her anxiety seemed to be getting the better of her.

Her phone vibrated on the floor near the bed, and she picked it up.  She ignored the Snapchat notification, focusing instead on the time.

“It’s getting late,” Marinette whispered, staring down at her phone.  “Tomorrow’s a school day.  You should—you should go home and get some sleep.”

Chat reached out, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.  “I don’t need to sleep,” he told her, and she glanced up, frowning.  “Marinette, I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything.  I _know_ this is real, but I can’t take the chance that it’s not.  I’ll never sleep again if it guarantees we can stay like this forever.”

“Chat.”  Marinette reached up, cupping his cheeks in her hands.  “Don’t say that.  You need to sleep.  I can’t do that to you.  It’s time for you to go home.”

Chat hesitated before nodding, and he released her just long enough for them to make their way onto the balcony.

“I love you,” he told her, pulling her close.  “I love you so much, Marinette, and I’m always going to, okay?”

Marinette’s throat was too closed up for her to respond, and she could feel tears starting to gather behind her eyes, so she reached up, threading her fingers through his hair, and tugged him down to meet her lips.

She put everything she had into that kiss, what would probably be their last, every bit of her love for him, every regret that it had taken a stupid love potion for her to see how amazing he was, every hope she had that this was just as real for him.  He reciprocated in kind, and it lasted for hours and only seconds.

She pulled back when her tears were too great, and she noted his look of panic as he hurried to brush them from her cheeks with his thumbs.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and she noticed he sounded a bit choked up as well.

“I don’t want this to end,” she whispered, staring up at him through her watery eyes.  “Tomorrow morning you’re going to wake up and you won’t be in love with me anymore, and that would fix everything, except—”  She broke off, biting her lip.

“Except what?”

Marinette brushed her hands across his hair, trailing them down his cheeks until they rested against his chest.

“Except I’m in love with you.”

There they were, the words she had carefully kept from him since she’d realized they were true.  They hung there, out in the open, as Chat stared at her, mouth hanging open.

She sniffed, and it seemed to jerk him out of his shock.  He cupped her cheeks, the desperation in his eyes clear as he pleaded with her.

“I’ll still be in love with you in the morning,” he assured her.  “I promise I will be, Marinette.  My feelings for you are real, and I love you so, so, so much, okay?  I’m still going to love you tomorrow.”  He had to be.  If he wasn’t in love with this amazing girl, he didn’t know what he was going to do.  His lip quivered, tears welling in his own eyes.  “I will be.  You have to believe me, Princess.  I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, closing her eyes.  “I’ll still love you even if you don’t love me back.”

“I will,” he pressed, dropping one hand from her face to tug her closer.  “I’ll always love you.”

Marinette shook her head.  “You can’t know that, Chat.”  She tried to take a step back.  “I should go to bed.”

His arms tightened around her.  “Let me stay,” he pleaded.  “I don’t want to leave you, Princess.  Not like this.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.  If he stayed, that meant she’d be with him when he woke.  It meant she’d have to see his face when he realized what he’d been doing all week and with who.  She couldn’t do that to herself.  “You have to go home tonight.”

“Marinette, look at me.  Please”  She cracked her eyes open, taking in his face.  He looked almost as wrecked as she was sure she did, silent tears dripping from his eyes.  “I love you, okay?  Remember that.  I promise I’m going to prove it to you.  I’ll be here tomorrow morning, before you go to school, and you’ll see.  Okay?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and raised herself onto her toes, unable to keep herself from stealing one last kiss.  His lips tasted salty, and they kept it slow, savouring the feeling, the sensations.

Marinette forced herself to pull back before it could drag on.  He caressed her cheek as she stepped away, and she could tell he wanted to tug her back against him just as much as she wanted him to.

“Goodnight, Chat,” she whispered, and he looked so lost, so broken that she had to glance away.

“Goodnight, Marinette.”

She made herself turn around and put all her concentration into dropping back into her room, knowing her resolve would break the second he called out for her and still wishing he would.

But she made it inside, closing the hatch behind her and curling into a ball on her bed.

She heard him swear loudly, and squeezed her eyes shut as she listened to him pace above her for a few long minutes before he left.

She let out the sob that had been building up then, burying her face in her pillow to muffle her cries.  Tikki curled in against her cheek, whispering words of comfort her chosen couldn’t hear.

It was over.  It was officially over.  He’d fall asleep soon, and then, when he woke, he wouldn’t be in love with her anymore and he’d know what she’d done.

Sure, he’d still be in love with Ladybug and she could be with him that way, but she didn’t know how she’d get over losing this, whatever it was they had.

She knew there was no way that Chat would be happy with her after learning he’d been under her spell, but how bad would it be?  If he was disgusted with even the concept of being in love with Marinette, would she still be able to be with him as Ladybug?  Could she do that?  Would she even _want_ to do that?

It took a while, but she eventually cried herself to sleep.  Tikki frowned at her sleeping chosen and flew off to find her phone.  She set the alarm, and hesitated for a moment before sending a text off to Alya.

She knew Plagg wouldn’t chose someone heartless, and she already knew Chat wasn’t, but she hoped he’d at least break it to her gently.

*********

Adrien dropped his transformation, digging his hands into his hair as he tried to keep from hyperventilating.  Emma butted her head against his leg and he dropped to the ground, picking her up and cuddling her against his chest.

“Breathe, kid,” Plagg said, and Adrien’s eyes darted up to meet his.

“It’s real, right?” he whispered, begging his kwami to confirm.  “I’m in love with Marinette for real, right?  I’m not going to wake up in the morning and not be?”

Plagg stared at him for a long moment before sighing.  “I don’t know, kid,” he said, settling onto his chosen’s knee.  “You definitely had feelings for Marinette last week, but you were in some pretty heavy denial about them until suddenly you weren’t.  Maybe it was just you deciding to stop being an idiot, or maybe it was your princess’s spell, I don’t know.  But you did accept your feelings for her pretty fast.”

Adrien closed his eyes, hugging Emma closer.  That was it, wasn’t it?  He’d just decided he didn’t want to pretend he wasn’t in love with Marinette anymore.  The spell hadn’t affected him, because he was in love with her for real.

“This is real, Plagg,” he said, wishing his voice sounded more confident.  “I love her.”

“Of course, kid.”  His kwami curled into his neck and started to purr.

It was real, he told himself, over and over.  He was going to wake up in the morning and still be in love with her.  There wasn’t any other option.  He had to be.

But the thought that maybe he wouldn’t hung in the corner of his mind, and it was terrifying.  What if she was right?  What if he really was only in love with her because of the spell?  Sure, Plagg thought he’d had feelings for her before, but what if tomorrow morning he decided he wanted to repress them again?  What if Plagg was wrong, and he wasn’t even slightly in love with her tomorrow morning?

A thought struck him, a thought so horrifying that he thought for a moment that he might throw up.

He didn’t know any of the side effects of the spell.  What if he woke up in the morning and couldn’t remember anything that had happened in the last week?

The thought of not knowing how amazing it was to love and be loved by Marinette was somehow worse than the thought of not being in love with her anymore.  Not being in love with her he could work with.  It wouldn’t be hard to fall in love with her again.

But if he didn’t remember?  If he left Marinette waiting without an answer and never dropped by to bring it up again?  God, that would kill him.

“Plagg,” he said, opening his eyes and glancing around desperately until the kwami rose into his vision.  “Plagg, you have to promise me something.”

“Okay.”  The kwami nodded, staring apprehensively at his chosen.  “What is it?”

“If I don’t remember anything when I wake up, I need you to tell me,” he pleaded, holding back the sobs that threatened to emerge.  “I need you to remind me how amazing it is to love her, okay?  And you need to remind me to go see her, because she’ll be waiting for me.  Please.”

“Of course, kid.”  Plagg nodded, darting back into his chosen’s neck.  “Of course.

Adrien vowed then that he wouldn’t fall asleep.  He let himself cry for a while, then moved himself and his cats to the couch, turning on a loud action movie with lots of flashing lights to keep himself awake.

And it worked, for a while.  But he was fast asleep by four.

Plagg nudged his chosen into a position that would be easier on his back and turned off the television and the lights.  He retrieved a blanket from the bed and tucked it around Adrien before herding a sleepy Emma towards his head, and they cuddled in with him for the night.  He felt the magic leave Adrien in waves, and hoped the morning would be easy on everyone.


	12. Here's the Answer

Marinette’s alarm went off and she groaned, already dreading the day.  She turned it off and forced herself to roll out of bed.

“How are you doing, Marinette?” Tikki wondered, trailing behind her chosen as she made her way to the bathroom.

“How do you think?” Marinette flipped on the light and frowned at her reflection.  She reached up to prod at the puffiness around her eyes, already knowing she wasn’t going to be able to cover them up for school.  At least Chat wouldn’t have to see her looking like this.  There was no way he’d want to be anywhere near her anymore.

“Oh, Marinette,” Tikki cooed, cuddling into her chosen’s neck as Marinette’s shoulders shook in a silent sob.  “You’re going to be okay.”

It took a few minutes, but she managed to dry her tears, though she knew that one wrong word would set them off again.  She washed her face and covered up the swelling as much as she could—which, admittedly, wasn’t much—and made her way back upstairs.

She was pulling on her shirt when a hesitant knock came from her roof, and she froze, her heart jumping to her throat.

“You can do this,” Tikki whispered, gently brushing against her cheek before disappearing.

Marinette took a moment to gather herself, pulling her other arm through her shirt and trying to convince her tear ducts to take a vacation.  Tikki was right.  She could do this.  She could go up and see Chat and she could listen to him tell her he never wanted to see her again and she definitely would not puke on him.

She could do this.

Nodding to herself, Marinette willed her hands to stop shaking as she made her way up to the roof, a tiny part of her pointing out that normally he’d have knocked again by now.

She pulled herself up, positive he could hear her heartbeat all the way from the other side of the roof.  She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, and stared down at her feet instead, at the Ladybug and Chat Noir socks she’d stupidly put on, thinking they’d offer her comfort.  Now they only mocked her.

“Marinette,” he said, his voice quiet and rough, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

This was it.  This was where he’d tell her he hated her, even though he’d promised otherwise, because you can’t really promise something when you’re being controlled by a love spell.  This was where he’d yell at her, and she’d have to take it, because he had every right to be mad.  This was the last time she’d ever speak to him outside the costume, because why would he ever want to speak to her again?

“I’m sorry,” she blurted before he could say any of that.  He really didn’t need to say anything.  She already knew what was coming.  “I am so, so sorry, Chat.  I never meant for this to happen to you.  I get it if you hate me.”  She broke off, sniffing.  “You  _ should _ hate me.  I’m sorry.  And I—I understand if you never want to see me again.”

And she did understand.  It hurt her to think about,  _ god _ it hurt, but she understood.

He didn’t say anything and she sighed, turning back towards the skylight.  “I’ll just go,” she mumbled, praying that the tears would stay in until he was gone.

“Wait.”  The word was barely a whisper, and she didn’t have much more than a moment to register it before he’d grabbed her hand, spinning her back around into his chest, before he was kissing her like there was no tomorrow.

Her eyes flew open, and she just stared at him, at the crease between his eyes.  This wasn’t happening.  She must still be dreaming.  Clearly she was still asleep, because there was no way Chat could be kissing her right now.

He pulled back before she could overcome her shock and return his kiss, his green eyes glassy as he raised a shaking hand to cup her face.

“I can’t tell you I’m still in love with you, Marinette,” he whispered, his thumb stroking her cheekbone.  She vaguely registered that his other arm was wrapped tightly around her waist, and the part of her that wasn’t still frozen wondered what the hell was going on.  “But I can say that this last week with you was amazing.”  He offered her a small smile, not seeming too concerned with her lack of a response.  “I’ve actually had a bit of a crush on you for a while and refused to act on it.  Some, uh, people have pointed out that that was a highly stupid decision.”  He gave a self-deprecating laugh, but she was still so, so confused.  He sighed, leaning in until their foreheads were touching.  “I’d be an idiot to not want such an amazing, brilliant, gorgeous girl, especially one who’s in love with me.”

Marinette stared at him for a moment longer as his words finally sunk through her stupor.  “What?”

Chat pressed a kiss to her cheek and pulled back again, smiling gently at her as he shrugged.  “I definitely need some more details about this whole love spell thing,” he said.  “Because I’m not sure why anyone would decide to put a love spell on a superhero and then be upset that it works, but we can deal with that later.”  He sighed, and the blood was pounding in Marinette’s ears so loudly that it almost drowned out his words.  “I’m not in love with you, Marinette.  But I’d really like to be, if you still want me.”

There was no way he was saying what she thought she was.  There was no way he was here, asking her if she still wanted to be with her.  That was impossible, right?  Chat couldn’t like her back, and he definitely couldn’t want to be with her after everything.

But he was there, watching her with such earnest eyes, and she wanted to believe him.

“This is real?” she whispered.  “You—you want to be with me?”

Chat nodded.  “I want it to be real,” he said.  “I want to fall in love with you.  Will you let me?”

Marinette couldn’t hold it in anymore, and a sob escaped.  She vaguely saw Chat’s face fall into panic through her tears, and he started to pull away.  She couldn’t let him do that, couldn’t let him think for even a moment that she didn’t want this, that she didn’t want  _ him _ , so she did the only thing she could do since she was crying too hard to speak.

She reached up, catching his face in both hands, and crashed their lips together.

She poured everything into that kiss, every ounce of her love and how sorry she was.  It took barely a moment before he’d wrapped her in his arms, kissing her back almost as fiercely.

They broke apart when her sobs grew too strong, and she let him cradle her against him as she whispered apologies into his chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked a while later, when her tears had dried, and she nodded against him.

“Thank you,” she whispered.  “For not hating me.  I love you, Chat.”

“I could never hate you, Princess,” he told her, pressing a kiss against her hair.  Her heart soared at the return of the nickname, and she pressed closer against him.

_ “Marinette!” _  She startled at the sound of her mother’s voice, jumping away from Chat.   _ “Are you ready for school yet?  Why are you on your balcony?” _

“I’m just, uh, watering the plants,” she called back, hoping Sabine didn’t come up to investigate.  “I’m ready.  I’ll leave in a minute.”

_ “Okay, dear.  Don’t forget to close the door.  You don’t want to let any bugs in.” _

They were silent, staring at each other with wide eyes, until Chat relaxed.

“She’s back downstairs,” he told her, and she found herself relaxing, too.  He stepped closer, brushing his knuckles against her cheek.  “I should get going, too.  I have to leave for school soon.  Can we talk later tonight?  Nine o’clock?”

Marinette nodded.  There was a lot they needed to talk about, however much she was dreading it.  He looked like he wanted to kiss her again, but instead just caught her hand and pressed it briefly against his lips.

“Goodbye, Chat,” she whispered, offering him a smile which he returned.

“Goodbye, Princess.”

And then he was gone, disappearing across the rooftops.

She went back inside after a moment, and Tikki emerged to hug her cheek.

“That went really well, Marinette,” she said, and Marinette grinned back.

“I know,” she agreed, still hardly believing it.  The guilt still sat in her stomach, and there was one more thing she had to do.  She glanced at her kwami.  “Tikki...”

“I know.”  Tikki nodded.  “Just make sure you’re careful.”

Marinette smiled her thanks and called on her transformation, settling against the blankest wall as she dialed her partner.

“Hey, Bugaboo.  What’s up?”  There was a white wall behind him, a hint of a bookshelf to his left.  He must have made it home.

“Hey, Chat,” she greeted, knowing her smile was probably strained.  “Meet up tonight, around eleven-ish?  The usual spot?  There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Of course, my Lady.”  Chat’s forehead creased, and she had the urge to smooth the wrinkles with her fingers.  “Is something wrong?”

Ladybug sighed.  “No, nothing’s wrong,” she assured him.  “I think—I think it’s time to share our identities.”

*********

Adrien was still trying to get his breathing under control as his car pulled up in front of the school.  Was this really his life?  He was officially dating Marinette Dupain-Cheng, who he’d been harbouring a crush on for years, as Chat Noir, and now Ladybug wanted to share their identities?  It was almost too much for one morning.

The car stopped, and he thanked the Gorilla as he opened his door, searching the students gathered for dark hair and gorgeous blue eyes.  He stopped himself after a second, knowing he wasn’t anywhere near ready to face Marinette as Adrien yet, and also knowing that pigs would fly before Marinette made it to school this early.  He spotted Alya and Nino huddled near the stairs and started towards them, hoping they’d be able to distract him.

That had been too much to hope for, he realized as he got closer, as they also seemed to be freaking out.  Maybe whatever had them in such a mood would be able to get his mind off Marinette and Ladybug.

“Oh my god!” Alya hissed as she caught sight of him, grabbing Nino’s arm tightly.  “Adrien doesn’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” he wondered, brows drawing together in confusion as his friends tugged him in closer.

“Dude, you picked the wrong week for that photoshoot,” Nino said, shaking his head.  Adrien didn’t point out that he hadn’t had any say in when the photoshoot happened.  “Shit went down hard.”

Adrien glanced between his friends.  This was good.  Whatever they were freaking out about definitely seemed like enough to distract him.  “What happened?”

“Okay, you swear you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you?”  Alya stared at him and he hesitantly nodded.  “Remember last week when you called and were asking about how things with Marinette and Chat Noir were going?”

Right.  He’d forgotten about that.  Apparently this wasn’t going to distract him at all.

Adrien sighed and nodded.  “How are things going now?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know.  “Has Marinette stopped being in denial yet?”

“Marinette went straight from denial to head over heels,” Nino said, and Adrien hoped he looked surprised enough.

“But that’s the problem,” Alya sighed.  “Last week, I found this recipe for a love potion in my nan’s things.  It was supposed to make your true love fall madly in love with you for a week.  We decided to try it on Marinette.”  She grimaced.  “I never thought it would actually work, but it did.”

“Chat Noir was only in love with her because of the spell,” Nino interjected, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh no,” Adrien said, trying to sound appropriately concerned.  He pressed his hand against his chest for good measure.

“Yeah.”  Alya kicked at a rock, glancing towards Marinette’s house.  “And she tried not to fall for him, but Jesus that guy is romantic.  I almost fell for him.”  Adrien felt himself blushing.  “And she wouldn’t give me all the details, but there were definitely quite a few heavy makeout sessions and they spent all of yesterday together.”  She sighed again.  “She’s been a mess thinking about what’s going to happen when the spell wears off.  I’m worried about her.  It wore off this morning, and I know she’s not going to take it well if he rejects her or is upset about the spell.  She told me she was meeting with him this morning.”

“Hopefully it went well,” Adrien said, trying to ease his friends away from their worrying.  It had gone well.  They didn’t have to worry anymore.

Nino shrugged.  “I dunno, dude,’ he said.  “He’s a superhero.  It’s not like he can date her very well while in costume.  Even if he does like her, he’s going to have to let her down.”

Adrien honestly hadn’t considered any of that.  He’d just woken up with the need to salvage whatever he could with Marinette, the inability to contemplate not being with her any longer.  Maybe he should have thought it through a little more.

“She’s here,” Alya hissed.  She closed her eyes and held up her crossed fingers, whispering something under her breath.

Adrien turned to watch her approach.  Marinette’s eyes were still swollen and bloodshot, and Adrien felt his heart contract.  He needed to hold her, tug her close and tell her everything would be okay.  He couldn’t imagine how she’d look if he’d told her he didn’t like her that way.

“Well?” Alya asked softly, despite how Adrien could practically feel her vibrating with how much she needed to know.  “How’d it go?”

Marinette’s lips tugged into a smile.  It was small and watery but genuine, and it was like sun shining through on a cloudy day.  Adrien felt butterflies take flight in his stomach, solidifying that he’d made the right choice that morning, and resisted the urge to pull her into a kiss.

“He wants to try,” Marinette told them, her smile gaining strength.  Alya squealed and tugged her into a hug, and Nino clapped her on the shoulder.  Adrien couldn’t bring himself to care who saw the dopey grin that was spreading across his face.

*********

“And then you showed up, and, well, you know the rest,” Marinette finished, staring down at their joined hands in her lap.

He’d been in her room for well over an hour now.  It’d been awkward, at first, neither really knowing how to act around each other now that the spell had worn off.  Then Chat had asked her to tell him about the spell, admitting that he’d been so sure of his feelings that week that he’d never paid too much attention to her explanations.  So she’d told him how Alya had found the spell, how she’d had to drink rehydrated elephant shit, how she hadn’t really been expecting anything to happen, how he was her true love, everything.

“I’m still really, really sorry,” she said again, wondering how many times she’d have to apologize before she finally felt like it was enough.  “I didn’t mean for you to get caught up in all of this.”

Chat’s thumb rubbed calming circles against her hands.  “I’ve already forgiven you,” he reminded her.  “You don’t have to apologize anymore.”  He tugged their hands against his chest, forcing her to see the earnestness in his eyes.  “I want this to work between us, Princess.  I really like you.”

Marinette felt herself flushing.  Somehow that hit her deeper than any of his love declarations had, a spark of truth ringing through to the surface of his words that hadn’t been there during the spell.  

“Can I ask you one thing, though?”  She hurried to nod.  He could ask her anything and she’d answer.  He looked a bit apprehensive, and she couldn’t put her finger on why until he’d voiced his question.  “People don’t perform a love spell without a target in mind, Princess, and you keep saying how you hadn’t meant for it to happen to me.  Who  _ did _ you mean for it to happen to?”

She blinked at him for a moment.  Did he sound jealous?

“It doesn’t matter,” she quickly said, because it didn’t.  She’d barely thought about Adrien since even before she’d kissed Chat.  When she’d seen him at school today, the feelings were still there, but they seemed smaller, duller in the light that was her love for Chat.  She still loved Adrien, but it was nothing compared to what she felt for Chat.  “I love you more now, and I’m not going to leave you for him.  I promise.”

Chat leaned forward to press a short, chaste kiss against her lips, and was smiling softly at her when he pulled away.  “I believe you,” he told her.  “But you must have loved him if you went as far as a love spell to try to be with him.  I’d like to know his name, if you don’t mind.”

Marinette bit her lip, contemplating it for a long moment.  “Alright,” she finally conceded.  “But you’ve got to believe me that I love you and I want to be with you.  And you’re not allowed to make fun of me.  It’s not a celebrity crush.  I go to school with him, and he’s one of my best friends.  It’s not like I’m just some crazy fangirl.”

Chat seemed to be trying to figure it out on his own, his eyes darting over her face, but he nodded.  “I promise I won’t make fun of you,” he assured her, and she sighed.

“His name’s Adrien Agreste,” she told him, before having to release his hands to pat his back as he choked on nothing.

*********

Chat jumped across the gap between two neighbouring roofs, his heart pounding.  He hated to leave Marinette after such a revelation, but it was coming up on the time he was supposed to be meeting Ladybug and there was no way he could be late tonight of all nights.

But he was definitely freaking out a little.  Had Marinette really been in love with him this whole time?  She’d confessed to being in love with Adrien basically since she’d met him.  That was four years ago!  How had he gone this long without noticing?  Was he really so clueless as to not notice that one of his friends was in love with him?  A friend he’d been at least minorly crushing on for almost as long, he might add?

And now she was in love with Chat Noir, too?  He sighed, letting a dopey smile onto his face.  How could someone as wonderful as her have fallen in love with him twice?  He must have been a literal saint in his past life to deserve someone as amazing as her.

Of course, they still had to discuss the whole love spell situation.  Sure, he really didn’t mind, only because it was her, specifically, whose spell he’d fallen under, and because, love spelled or not, the last week had been one of the best of his life.  But he had to admit that if it had been someone other than Marinette, he wouldn’t be feeling so good about the situation right now.  He’d figure out what to say to her sometime tonight, after he and Ladybug finished up.

Which brought him to another problem, he mused, touching down on the rooftop they were meeting on.  Ladybug hadn’t arrived yet, so he still had time.

What was he going to do about his secret identity, now that he and Marinette were together?  He wasn’t about  to contemplate trying to keep it to himself while they were at school.  He knew his strengths, and subtlety was not one of them.  He’d barely been able to keep himself in check today, and they’d only had a couple of classes together.  What was he supposed to do when she inevitably gushed about something romantic Chat did for her?  Not preen like an idiot and kiss her senseless?  Like that was even remotely possible.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.  He was going to have to figure out some way to let Marinette in on his identity.  That was the only way this could go down without her punching Adrien in the face for kissing her at school while knowing she was dating “someone else”.  

But telling her came with its own set of problems.  Namely the fact that Alya and Nino knew Marinette was dating Chat Noir.  Which meant it would be weird if she switched to dating Adrien the next day.  Since Ladybug was suddenly into sharing their identities, Chat figured she could be talked into being okay with him sharing his identity with his girlfriend, but three people?  He might as well be asking her for a unicorn.

Why had his love spell addled brain decided pursuing her as Chat Noir would be the better idea?  His love life would be so much easier right now if he’d just ditched the photoshoot and approached her as Adrien.

His ears twitched at the sound of feet touching down behind him, and he spun to greet Ladybug with a grin.

“It feels like fur-ever since I’ve spotted you, my Lady,” he said, swinging an arm around her shoulders and tugging her into his side.

Ladybug laughed, though it sounded a bit nervous.  “Oh, well I’ve seen a lot of you, Chaton,” she said, her returning hug was awkward from their position, and she stepped out of his arms barely a moment later.

Chat laughed as well, rubbing at the back of his neck as he felt his face heat up.  “You saw the Chatstreet Boys, huh?”  He offered her a half-grimacing smile, before deciding to take his boyband debut in stride and turning it into a smirk.  “I  _ am _ quite tail-ented, aren’t I?”

He was expecting an eye roll or maybe a laugh.  He was  _ not _ expecting Ladybug to flush darkly and glance away, but that was what happened.

“Yeah,” she agreed, and Chat watched her curiously as she shifted from foot to foot.  “That was, uh, quite the performance.”

“Right.”  Chat nodded slowly, wondering if he should bring up her weird behaviour or if she’d bring it up herself.

“So, revealing,” she said, effectively switching the topic.  “I want to tell you who I am.”

Chat nodded again, feeling a grin spread across his face.  “Same time?” he asked, reading himself to release his conversation.

“No!”  Ladybug held her hands up, a panicked look on her face.  “I need to go first.  Please.”

“Okay.”  Chat eyed her.  “Can I ask what brought this on?  I mean, you wanting to share our identities is kind of sudden, right?”

Ladybug shrugged.  “I mean, I’ve wanted to tell you for years,” she told him.  “But Tikki’s always pointed out that it’s safer if no one knows, and I’ve agreed.”

Chat blinked at her for a moment, taking in the fact that he wasn’t the only one who’d been wondering all this time.  “So why now?” he wondered.

Ladybug offered him a timid smile, her hands twisting nervously.  “I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”

He was lost.  “What do you mean?”

Ladybug shrugged again.  “I think it’s easier if I just show you.”  He nodded, and she took a deep breath.  “Spots off.”

He was momentarily blinded by the pink light that radiated out of her.  When it faded, his mouth dropped open as he stared at her, at his Lady, his Princess, his everything.

“Chat?” Marinette whispered, and he realized he’d been silent for too long.  “Look, I’m still really, really sorry about the whole love spell thing.  I understand if you can’t trust me anymore and—mmph!”

He cut her off as he crashed his lips into hers, pouring every ounce of love he could muster into his kiss.  He pulled back a moment later, just to stare at her and to pinch himself to prove this wasn’t some wonderful, wonderful dream.

“Marinette,” he whispered, caressing her flushed cheek.  He then pressed a kiss there, too, because he could.

“Putting you under a love spell wasn’t the best start to our relationship,” she was saying, as his kisses trailed across her cheek and down to her neck.  “I didn’t want to keep anymore secrets or lies from you.  We’re supposed to trust each other, right?  And how could you really trust me if I was dating you as Marinette and not telling you as Ladybug?  I get if you’re mad or if—”

“Marinette,” he interrupted, humming her name against her neck and grinning as she shivered in response.  “It’s all good.  It’s better than good.  Everything’s worked out amazingly.”

She seemed about to protest more, so he captured her lips again.  He knew they’d have to have this conversation at some point, that it was something they really needed to discuss, but they could do that later.  Right now, he’d just found out that the girl he loved and the girl he was quickly falling for were one in the same.  He just wanted to enjoy this moment.

He pulled back sometime later, delighting in the way she panted for breath, and drew his thumb across her lips.

“I guess it’s time for me to return the favour,” he said, grinning as he contemplated her reaction to finding out she’d fallen for him twice.

“You don’t have to,” she hurried to say.  “I don’t want to pressure you into revealing yourself, Chat.  If you don’t want to tell me yet, that’s fine.  I don’t mind.”

“Don’t worry, Princess,” he told her, pressing a reassuring kiss against her lips.  He smirked down at her.  “I guarantee you’ll fall in love with me as soon as you see my face.  My cheekbones are to die for.  There’s no way you’ll be able to resist me.”

“You silly cat,” she sighed, sliding her hand up his body to cup his cheek.  “I’m already in love with you.”

His smirk turned to a dopey grin at her reminder.  “Oh, I know.  Claws in.”

When the light faded, he watched recognition flash through her eyes before a parade of other emotions.  Love, he caught, along with various forms of confusion and humiliation.

She spluttered through a few unintelligible syllables before finally managing to speak, though her voice was far higher than it usually was.  “Adrien!?”

Adrien only grinned at her before catching her lips in a kiss.


	13. Take a Sip of my Secret Potion

_Epilogue_

The last two days had been amazing. Marinette and Adrien had had a serious discussion about their feelings and about the ethics of using magic to get what they wanted.

They’d also had to reveal their identities to Alya and Nino, since Marinette dating Chat wouldn’t really work out too well in the long run and neither trusted themselves to be capable of keeping their hands to themselves during akuma battles or school.

Their friends had been shocked, to say the least, but ultimately had found the whole situation hilarious. Alya had recounted a somewhat confusing conversation she’d had with Adrien the week before, where he’d seemed to be fishing too hard for details on Marinette’s feelings for Chat. Marinette and Nino has gotten a kick out of it, while Adrien had grumbled something about a code of secrecy.

Adrien had yet to tell Marinette he loved her since the spell had worn off. Sure, he did love her and, yeah, he really wanted to tell her, but she’d insisted he take time to work out how he felt about the whole love potion thing and whether his feelings really did extend from Ladybug to Marinette. They did, he’d known that deep down even before he’d been under her spell, but he’d promised her a week of contemplation, so that was what he was going to give her.

He grinned at her as she made her way to where he stood at his locker.

“Good morning, Princess,” he said, tugging her into his side and pressing a kiss against her temple. “Have I told you how pretty you look this morning yet?”

Marinette rolled her eyes, flushing slighting. “Good morning, chaton.”

“Ready for class?” he asked, and she sighed.

“I suppose.” She let him lead her towards the classroom. “I wonder if Chat Noir would be willing to serenade me in French again. I’m so not prepared for this midterm.”

“Maybe you should’ve studied last night instead of insisting you were fine with spending the night cuddling and watching The Bachelor,” Adrien pointed out, wiggling his eyebrows.

Marinette snorted and elbowed him lightly in the stomach, but didn’t bother to respond as they entered the classroom and settled into their desks.

Most of the class was there already, and Adrien offered Nino a fist bump.

“Who’s ready for this midterm?” Alya asked, rolling her eyes. “The answer is obviously no one, because midterms should go die in a hole.”

“Speaking of the midterm,” Kim said, throwing his arms wide as he came in the door with Max. “I’m going to fail.”

Marinette laughed with the rest of the class as he made his way up the steps. She was not, however, expecting him to stop in front of her, slamming his hands down on her desk.

“Please, Marinette,” he begged. “Save me.”

She giggled, patting his hands consolingly. “I am definitely not the best person at French,” she pointed out. “You should be asking someone else for help.”

Kim shook his head. “You’ve got something no one else does,” he told her, and Marinette squinted in confusion. “The answer to what is definitely going to be a question on the midterm.” He eyed her carefully, slowly drawing out the question. “Who sent the Chatstreet Boys?”

Marinette’s eyes flickered to Adrien, and she let a smile tug at her lips as she looked back to Kim. “Well…”

*********

It was nice having people knowing her secret identity, Marinette decided later that afternoon. She hadn’t even had to mutter an excuse as she ran in late to maths class after an Akuma attack, as Alya and Nino had already provided the teacher with one. Adrien seemed just as relieved.

She tried to pay attention, since maths was technically important and something she’d supposedly need later in life and her attention _had_ been lacking in the last week or so, but it wasn’t long before Alya slid her phone across the desk.

Marinette rolled her eyes. She’d thought Alya knowing who she was would stop her from having to hear about all the latest Ladybug news.

But then she looked at the picture, which was linked to an article from a major news station, and realized why Alya thought she should see this.

It was of Ladybug and Chat, as she’d assumed it would be. Someone had managed to catch a picture of the kiss she’d given him after the attack. The kiss she’d thought had been discreet, the one that was apparently anything but.

She rolled her eyes again as she glanced at the title of the article.

**_Ladybug And Chat Noir—Partners In More Than Just Heroics?_ **

Well, apparently their relationship was public now as both Marinette and Adrien and as Ladybug and Chat Noir. There were worse things that could happen.

*********

Caline Bustier poured herself a second glass of wine as she flipped to the next page of Kim’s midterm, correcting another answer.

Her eyes were drawn to the bottom of the page where the bonus question lay, wondering what kind of answer he’d come up with.

She then proceeded to choke on her sip of wine, because Kim had answered _Who sent the Chatstreet Boys?_ with _Adrien Agreste._

It was a joke, obviously. Adrien had been at a photoshoot the entirety of the week before, so there was no way he’d have time to organize a Chat Noir themed boy band to serenade Marinette.

Of course, the two of them had been looking fairly cozy this week, and their interactions had been a lot less awkward.

She took another sip of her wine and pushed Kim’s midterm aside for the moment, curious as to what the rest of her students had answered.

Ivan’s rest was next on the pile, and she flipped to the end, where _Adrien_ greeted her yet again. Either this was an elaborate joke, or something had happened to cause Kim and Ivan to actually agree on something.

She decided to check the rest of the exams and found the same thing again and again. Rose, Sabrina, Nino, even Marinette herself had the same answer. Chloe as well, which was probably the most shocking.

Each and every exam had the same answer, and she stared down at the final one, Adrien’s, and downed the rest of her wine before flipping it open.

 _Who sent the Chatstreet Boys?_ was the question.

And apparently _Me :3_ was the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a wild ride, and I am both sad and relieved that it's over. Reminder to go check out [the playlist](http://the-original-book-worm.tumblr.com/post/168310905015/mbb-response) and [the artwork](http://mrsashketchum.tumblr.com/post/168313779918). I hope you all enjoyed the fic :)
> 
> Comments feed my children, and kudos go towards passing my finals.
> 
> Come follow me at probably-voldemort and my lovely Death Eaters greenparispavement, the-original-bookworm, and mrsashketchum on Tumblr.
> 
> Please love potion responsibly and don't forget to tip your waitress.


End file.
